Wild Ones
by Molten-Ashes
Summary: Jazz knew having a Crime Boss for an Ex would come back to bite him in the aft...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers!

Please R&R!

(Do I really need another Multi-chapter fic to do? No.

Is this Ice Fata's fault for mentioning this in passing and making me want to work on it? Frag Yes.

Enjoy!)

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><p>The building the mechs had gathered in was a ruined shell of what had once been a prestigious office building at the hub of a thriving town on the outskirts of Iacon. Odd shards of decoration that had survived the fires and first wave of bombs stuck out of the rubble like a sparkling playing hide and seek.<p>

Rolling his shoulders the disguised saboteur known as Jazz calmly joined the subtle flow of mechs towards the basement of the building, his friend and subordinate, a Towers mech named Mirage strode beside him, having come in from a different direction, his normally blue and white plating coloured black and a shady grey.

They casually nodded to each other as they joined the gaggle of mechs that had entered a grand clearing in the middle of the rubble. Some were chatting about some business while others offered glares to rivals they had hoped had been killed in the middle of the War that was going on around them.

This was the vornly gathering of the Mob Bosses of Cybertron, and Jazz was here to do some recruiting and hopefully blow the rest of the slaggers to the pit.

One mech, the Boss Elder, sat pompously on a large pile of rubble that had oddly fallen like a throne, a ruined, torn tapestry of rare organic material grandly broadcasting the extent of the devastation from behind the ancient mech. A cygar moved to and fro from between his muttering lip plates as he cast his gaze over the room like he was Primus himself, commenting to his sneering aide about the health of a certain mech or the ruthlessness of a certain family. He puffed out a trail of smoke, the coils twisting like dying cyber-snakes as they dissipated into the atmosphere. They way his frame was bulked up with armour around his middle suggested to bots that he was fat with good energon and had impenetrable armour. Jazz subtly sneered into his meagre energon cube that had been served by a scared looking servant; it wasn't the ones with the bulky armour that were difficult to send into Unicron's merciless embrace. It was the Bosses that were lightly armoured and elegantly designed, broadcasting to the world that they were dangerous and they needed no bulky, cumbersome armour to hide behind.

With a croaky rumble, the gathered Bosses were quickly silenced when a late arrival strode into the room, Jazz instantly disappeared among the crowd towards the gawking Mirage as Megatron, the tyrannical Leader of the Decepticons walked among the crowd toward the Mob Elder that raised an ancient optic ridge in surprise at the grey mechs arrogance when he casually greeted the smoking Leader. "Great Elder." The gravelly tones said with an undertone of malice that made Jazz reach for his dagger in his subspace only for Mirage to grab his wrist plating and shake his helm subtly. "I come to you for help."

Many of the elegant, lightly armoured femmes, the prize brides of the Mob Bosses who were always unfaithful, hid their bastard sparklings and younglings from view, almost as if they predicted Megatron demanding troops from the powerful mechs and even odd femme that ruled the Cybertronian underworld.

The Elder snickered with a strained wheeze, his old aquamarine gaze warily scanning over the warlord that had brought most of the Bosses' cities to their foundations, destroying business for the Hive ever since the war had begun. "I am merely a figure head Megatron. Even I answer to another now."

That got everybody whispering, all of the Underground elite quickly eyeing up their competitors that equally gazed distrustfully back. Even Jazz and Mirage paused as they made their way subtly around the room planting bombs, both giving each other a disturbed glance. That hadn't been in the information package.

Both saboteurs passed by a blue, red and white painted Praxian with a bright white '38' decorating his doorwings that leant against a shattered pillar of the building, shuffling a deck of cards with a design that Mirage instantly recognised as the Praxian mech released a cloud of smoke from the cygarette he was currently smoking in the shape of a perfect circle.

"That's 'The Gambler', hailing from Praxus." Mirage reported on a secure communication line as his superior darted between two rival families that were probably soon going to come to blows, giving one a friendly pat on the back even though he had never seen the mech before. It was better to build a fake relation or client to a Boss family than be revealed in the middle of the Hive, "One of the three brothers that rule the Praxian underground."

Jazz winced as 'The Gambler' looked up from his shuffling of his ornately designed cards to gaze suspiciously at the undercover Saboteur as he passed with a submissive looking nod. The Praxian watched quietly as Jazz disappeared into the middle of a large group before the mech went back with a sigh of his vents to shuffling his cards, the faint light catching the mech's golden chevron that delivered a blinding flash as the Praxian shifted.

He crept closer to the throne of rubble where Megatron was looking ready to spit bolts, his growling roar of 'Who?' silencing the gather Mob Bosses, all of them freezing like frightened turbo-deer in the headlights.

The Elder, looked past Megatron towards 'The Gambler' standing smirking beside his pillar, the ancient servo, reaching out with an almost exaggerated shaking motion, beckoning the younger mech towards the rubble throne. "Gambler, Middle Brother of the Enforcer Family, your elder brother is late."

"My apologies, Elder," The Gambler replied smoothly, his voice thick with a distinct Praxian Towers cadence, stubbing out his cygarette on the broken wall, trickles of embers floating around his pedes as he left the shady place of his hideaway, walking among the Mob Bosses of Cybertron with a silky stalking gait that made the Bosses and their families part like the red sea for him. "My Leader will be slightly late this fine orn. A bit of business came up that he simply had to see to, I offered to come in his place."

"And you control the Mob Hive?" the grey tyrant asked, the War Lord giving a sneer as 'The Gambler' looked up at him with an unimpressed air, the glossy wings tilting down in clear disdain.

"Until my brother finishes his business with a client," The Gambler smiled almost lecherously, his doorwings, embossed with a white '38' rising to flutter slightly in amusement, his azure optics glinting with hidden, cheeky intentions and gossip. "It is annoying when one tries to get out of a deal isn't it?"

The Mob Elder laughed with a throaty wheeze, his mouth expelling a cloud of foul grey smoke as his glossa held his cygar in his oral cavity. The other Bosses chuckled collectively to ease their nerves at these turns of events.

"Jazz," Mirage hissed from behind him, the blue and white noble having shed his disguise and activated his invisibility cog. "Let's get out of here; we're five breems late to the checkpoint."

Giving himself a mental shake, Jazz gave a shudder when he saw 'The Gambler' seeming to stare at him through a gap in the crowd and silently, carefully made his way towards the exit, the trigger for his placed bombs safely clasped in his servo, ready to activate at the slightest moment's notice.

If he was to go down, he was taking them with him.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you Jazz." The soft, young voice had him freezing in his tracks beside the hidden entrance, out of sight from all the commotion going on between 'The Gambler' and Megatron.

"'Silverstreak'." Jazz greeted lowly, his gaze catching the flash of silver paint emblazed upon a naturally grey frame highlighted with red, sitting polishing an ornate, powerful sniper rifle, blazing baby blue optics, hooded by a shorn ruby chevron, focusing single-mindedly on the task as the saboteur signalled for Mirage to go ahead to the checkpoint without him.

"I would have thought you could have used my real name Jazz." The youngest member of the Enforcer Family said with a fake cheeriness as he finished rubbing away a smudge on the shining barrel of his gun and stowed the cloth in his subspace. The Praxian smiled softly, almost angelically as he reared the rifle so the butt of the gun was resting on his thigh, the barrel pointed loftily at the crumbling ceiling and a finger curled over the trigger. "We used to be like family."

"I want nothing to do with your lot." Jazz snapped, perhaps over harshly, for the bright optics dimmed with contempt as he shook the servo with the trigger in front of the Praxian's faceplate. "You all lied to me; I nearly bonded to that slagger!"

Optics flashed a furious red, and Jazz found the barrel of the rifle promptly shoved into his throat cabling making him choke, dropping the trigger for the bombs in shock, both watching it roll away under a low slab of ruined building, "My brother loved you." The now devilish assassin of the Enforcer Family snarled quietly, gray finger trembling on the trigger as he turned back to the busted infiltrator. "And you… you _saboteur_… you broke his spark."

"I broke _his_ spark?" Jazz growled furiously, unaware his voice was getting louder and gaining a slightly hysterical tinge.

"It's curious though." 'Silverstreak' continued, faceplate twisted and haunting as he tapped his clawed digit on the trigger of his trusted sniper rifle. "He didn't order that you should be silenced, Makes me wonder if big brother dearest still cares for your sorry aft, somehow. Good frag, were you Jazz?"

The saboteur roared his rage, forgetting everything, his mission, the bombs, backpedalling away from the rifle barrel in his throat before leaping at the mech, only to get hoisted up by the scruff bar so that he was dangling like a scorned feline, twisting, hissing and spitting his fury into the smirking faceplates of a golden chevroned mech known as 'The Gambler', the leering Megatron holding him tightly in his grasp as he charged his fusion cannon, many of the Mob Bosses peering around the corner curiously at the disturbance.

"I knew there was a saboteur." Megatron rumbled dangerously, as 'The Gambler' hummed in agreement; 'Silverstreak' snickered in the background, his job of revealing Jazz done. "If you don't mind… I'll take this cretin back to the Decepticons for interrogation before we send his frame back to those sentimental fools that call themselves Autobots."

"I'm afraid not Megatron." 'The Gambler' said diplomatically, withdrawing a cygarette from his subspace and lighting it with a casual spark from clashing two of his claws together, blowing a smoke ring that haloed Jazz's helm as he dangled from the War Lord's grip, earning a snarl of defiance. "Autobot Jazz and our family have a history." The Praxian grinned darkly up at the Tyrant that suddenly chuckled in understanding. "He's currently on the naughty pad and my brother will seriously consider your generous offer of joining the Decepticons if you give him to us..."

"Very well." Megatron smirked as 'The Gambler' twirled a set of stasis cuffs on his finger, fitting them to Jazz's wrists as the gun-former hauled the saboteur's arms forwards, "Consider him payment for your services and a... test of your worth."

"Our gracious thanks, Lord Megatron." 'The Gambler' grinned, with an exaggerated bow as the Warlord turned away and left the hideout of the Mob Bosses.

"Now Jazz." 'Gambler 'said with a sigh, turning to the growling saboteur, who was immobilised by the current of the stasis cuffs clasped around his wrists. "I hope you're ready for a reunion. It's going to be one Pit of a party."

Giving a cry of frustration, Jazz could only watch as 'The Gambler' reached forward and offlined him with a single tug to a set of cables in his neck.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers

Please R&R

(Thanks to Sideslip for the chocolate. The bunnies appreciated it while I munched the carrots...

As usual Ice Fata for urged me to write it and thanks to Star Fata for offering me some writing tips (and Choccy) while I wrote this chapter!

and last but not least... Primus, I love evil Prowl in my head... enjoy!)

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><p>It took him a few breems to realise the ceiling he was staring at wasn't the plain grey one of the barracks in Iacon. Startled, panicked and maybe, if he was honest with himself, scared out his processor, Jazz leapt up into a sitting position with a gasping heave of his vents.<p>

The first thing he noticed was that his servos weren't cuffed anymore, the only obvious sign that the stasis cuffs had been there, were the faint scrapes in his normally pristine paint which had somehow been returned to its natural black and white state.

Second, was that he was in a plush berth, in a giant grand room, identical to what a bot would find in the Prime's private quarters in Iacon, stretched out before him as natural light leaked in from a large floor to ceiling window, the beams of light refracting from a mobile of Praxian crystals in a blueish haze. Far in the distance, beyond the Gardens of living crystals, the city of Praxus went about its daily routine. Nope, this definitely wasn't the Decepticon Brig either.

A servo-crafted fireplace crackled in the corner, pink flames biting and clawing at the fuel rods glowing white with heat at its base, the tame fire cocooned in a protective grill. He threw off the thermal covers of the berth, much like a sparkling throwing a tantrum, and sprang from the grand place like a startled cyber hare.

Frantically, he tried the double doors, cursing his luck when he found his subspace empty and an 'IOU' note signed by 'The Gambler' himself. "I'm back here." Jazz grumbled thumping his helm on the door, "The last place on the fragging planet I wanted to be…"

The doors, almost as if they were responding to his helm thumping against their gilded designs, reeled inwards with a calm, silent sigh of atmosphere, making the captured saboteur backpedal as 'The Gambler' strode into the room, a trail of smoke wafting behind him from a seemingly ever present cygarette clasped in his oral cavity.

"You're up I see." The mainly blue painted Praxian commented, the cygarette shifting as he gave the now scowling Jazz a slow, easy smile that reminded the black and white mech of a minibot called Beachcomber. The Praxian made his way over to a set of plush chairs designed to be the most luxurious and comfortable ever created for the Praxian frame design, slumping into one with a sigh as the black and white saboteur mournfully watched his chances of escaping dwindle when the doors reeled shut and locked by themselves. "Sit down Jazz, I don't bite."

"Could have fooled me." The Head Saboteur of the Autobots growled, fists clenching and unclenching as 'The Gambler' withdrew two cubes of energon from his subspace, setting one on the side table and drinking deeply from the one in his grasp. "I seem to recall you were the one who offlined me. After Silverstreak played his little processor warping games of course."

"Primus and all his glorious avatars," 'The Gambler' clucked at him, like a Carrier tutting at his sparkling, withdrawing his cygarette from his oral cavity and, as he clasped it between two fingers he let out a casual precise circle of sweet smelling smoke, before returning his habit to his mouth. "You're so needlessly wary of us. You are safe here. That is, until big brother dearest knows where my little brother and I have stashed you away."

"Alright,_ Smokescreen_," Jazz sneered almost spitting The Gambler's true designation, keeping a healthy distance from the now smirking mech. "Why am I still in the land of the functioning? Didn't Megatron give you orders to have me deactivated?"

"Megatron doesn't control our family." The middle brother of the Enforcer Family snickered, his optics taking on a faraway tinge of icy blue, "Praxus is ours Jazz. Every single business deal stems back to our organisation. Every micro-spec of gossip is channelled into our systems, even gossip outside of our city."

"You've been keeping tabs on me?" Jazz growled, resorting to pacing along the edge of the plush berth like a caged animal. "I thought I was free of you all!"

"My little brother and I have been… making sure you were still functioning." Smokescreen commented offhandedly, waving a servo as if to dismiss Jazz's arguments, tilting his helm to gaze at the Autobot Saboteur with a deep azure gaze. "besides… Big brother would be most upset if something happened to you and he wasn't the one to do it. He's alluringly complex that way..."

_**==Downtown Praxus==**_

The Client had been two vorns behind on his rent payments when he was personally delivered the summons to the Enforcer Family mansion. His business hadn't been doing so well since the war started. People tended to avoid splashing out on getting overcharged at a pub when there were rumours of energon shortage going about. So, well aware that it could be his last orns in the land of the functioning, he locked up his beloved pub, waved goodbye to the wary neighbours, and followed the directions printed on the data-pad that a servant had delivered.

He felt his frame heat with embarrassment as he steadily progressed into he city's magnificent hub. The green mech was an outskirter by nature, never venturing into the more lavish parts of the city unless business called for it. Nervously he entered the central Crystal Gardens that had made Praxus the tourist sensation it had been in its hayday before the war had broken out, where, directly in the middle of the Gardens, like a spider sitting in its web, lay the Enforcer Family mansion.

The mansion itself was located, geographically in the centre of Praxus, a jewel in the middle of an already 'angelic' city, where culture, crystals, festivals and perfect hospitality were everywhere. But if one dug a little deeper into the façade that was shielded jealously from the outside world, they would see a city of criminals, every mech, femme and sparkling held within the powerful thrall of the leading Towers family that had defied Noble Tradition and had struck out on their own. Praxus was proud of its corrupt heritage, and truthfully, it was one of the most successful industrial cities on Cybertron because of it.

Gates of living crystal hummed as a magnet attracted the living barrier open, the sprawling gardens of crystal flowers and trees glittering in the light of the midorn. A servant led him through the doors that would have towered several feet above even a Guardian mecha and pointed him towards a conference room just beyond the main lobby where Praxian architecture was at its finest, accented here and there by bold paintings by famous artists.

Nervously, his green plating rattling in subconscious terror, he opened the conference room door, his vocaliser giving a squeak as he spotted an elegant mech standing looking out of the window, his ice blue optics fixed on the horizon where the high spires of Praxus pierced the sky. "Greetings, Flux, I believe you know why you are here."

"Barricade." He stammered, giving a low courteous bow to the beautiful black and white mech, his glossy finish adding to the 'wow' factor that the Enforcer Family's Eldest naturally possessed. "I…" The grass green mech paused, his golden optics shifting nervously trying to look anywhere but the most dangerous and powerful mech in Praxus, though his gaze was always captured by the molten ruby, unshorn chevron, its magnificent points, as sharp as a blade leading down to a gold crest at the centre of the Praxian's forehelm. Then, naturally, ones optics travelled to catch the glacier blue optics, the almost white light, frosty and tinged with the barest hint of annoyance which spurred another amount of spluttering and nervous babbling.

"You are behind on your payments." Barricade finally said lowly after watching the green mech squirm, the tone was quiet but it was as if he had shouted, Flux's vocaliser shorting out and dying with a buzz of static terror.

"Nobody goes to a bar anymore." Flux finally managed to squeak as the black and white mech moved towards the elaborate 'Board Director' chair and sat with an elegance that only nobles possessed. "The war is making business difficult."

"I'd imagine it is." The Head of the Enforcer Family nodded, his optics hooded in the shadow of his chevron. "I did not ask you here to deactivate you over some delayed payment. I asked you here to deliver a message…"

Flux, almost snorted in disbelief, Barricade never 'asked' anyone to do anything, it was an order, only it was phrased in the nicest possible way that guaranteed a lot of pain if you didn't follow through. "And in return," Barricade continued as Flux mentally scorned him, "I will hand over the deed to the patch of ground your bar sits upon and have your debt with my Family cleared."

That almost stalled Flux's engine. It was almost impossible to own your own patch of land in Praxus for the Enforcer Family owned it all. Unfortunately, those who had their own land were normally the most valuable pawns of the Family. "So Flux, do we have a deal?" Barricade asked, the optics of blue ice locking with shocked gold.

"I…" Flux tried to vocalise his shock, hope and even joy at the thought of being one of the only independent owner of a bar in Praxus. Instead, he nodded, ignoring the part of his processor screaming that it was somehow a trap.

"Good." Barricade rumbled, his engine giving a distinct purr of approval, shoving a data-pad at the green mech that had been resting at the head of the table. "I need you to deliver this to the Kaon City Council or whatever is left of them. When you return, your bar and the land it is on is yours."

"Thank you." Flux almost gushed, subspacing the data-pad and bowing lowly, also ignorant of the fact that Barricade could have just sent a servant to do this task. "I shall do it immediately."

The Eldest of the Enforcer Family inclined his helm, leaning back in his chair, "Very good, I shall have all the paper work ready for when you return. Now leave. I have urgent business to attend to."

Bowing low once more, Flux dashed from the room.

_**===Enforcer Family Conference Room===**_

"He is a wasted investment." Barricade sighed as the door closed, the familiar shadow of his youngest brother appearing on his right side behind his chair the silver splash on his little brother's frame glinting like a beacon in the light of the conference room. "A wasted effort, a loose end…"

"Do you want him Silenced?" Silverstreak asked silkily, his sniper rifle's barrel lancing over his shoulder strut from where the beloved gun was magnetised to his back, always ready to draw and fire.

"So eager to please this orn, Bluestreak," Barricade chuckled darkly, his voice still tinged with a monotone as he used Silverstreak's real designation. "What have you and Smokescreen done now?"

"Smokey and I have a gift for you." Bluestreak purred, checking his pointed claws with the air of a picky femme.

"Oh?" the chilling monotone of the eldest brother rumbled, white servos shuffling a stack of pads that he withdrew from a drawer in the table. "That's not like you two."

"Can't we be loving and caring brothers for once?" the grey mech asked; his smile cheeky and mischievous.

Optics, bordering on the verge of ivory, rose from the last pad in his servo, casting an almost wary glance over his shoulder strut, commented with a low, cultured tone. "The last time you said that Bluestreak, I received the mauled corpse of that senator who was getting to big for his pedes in the post."

Bluestreak, Enforcer Family Assassin, smiled angelically before he turned back to the topic at hand. "So… Kaon huh?"

"Kaon is a dangerous place for anybot." Barricade said setting his work onto the table to swivel his chair to face his youngest brother. "I trust you will be partaking in your hobby while you are over there, ensuring our messenger Flux, doesn't come back?"

"Smokey has his smoking habits, I have mine." Bluestreak replied innocently, his blue optics becoming tinged with a doe eyed look. "Besides you've seen my holo-posters. I can't resist staying away from the Pits for long."

"Yes, you're infatuation with the Gladiator Sunstreaker is getting quite obsessive." Barricade said with a low note of disapproval, turning back to his data-work and mulling over his options. "Very well, you tell me what my gift is, and I will make arrangements for you to slip in with the pleasure-bots to frag with this Gladiator you like so much while you are in Kaon."

Bluestreak purred, "Thank you big brother. You are so kind to me."

Barricade gave a noncommittal noise in his vocaliser only for his engine to snarl in rage, optics crackling a frosty blue, his stylus breaking through his data-pad with the loud crack of splitting glass and software, as Bluestreak let slip his 'gift'.

"An Autobot Saboteur, designation: Jazz, is in the guest suite…"


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers!

Please R&R

(I've puddled around with this chapter for nearly a week and a half as I was bombed with headcannon for this and didn't want to give away too much to soon.

As usual, Ice Fata's the one who prodded me into writing.

Thanks to Sideslip for the High Grade! This the bunnies actually let me have!

Enjoy!)

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><p>"Brother, please calm yourself." Bluestreak purred as Barricade swept the ruined, sparking data-pad from the conference table with a snarl of temper, shards of screen and wiring tinkling to the floor as the pad cracked against the window with a dull boom of cracking glass, a spider web crevice weaving from the impact point, marring the view over the Enforcer Family's city.<p>

Barricade growled, his engine rumbling like a ground-quake, as he braced his servos on the desk, rising to stand with the quiet hiss of his internal hydraulics, his claws raking a screeching canyon in the expensive table as Silverstreak cringed back into the shadows in fear of being struck. Glacier optics blazed like trapped fire, the eldest of the Enforcer Family's electromagnetic field darting and writhing like a tormented snake against his polished black and white plating, doorwings flaring and arcing into a 'v' around the chevron crested helm. "Summon Smokescreen for me on your way to the station. Take our private transport to Kaon, I will arrange for your… 'session' with Sunstreaker upon your arrival and confirmation of Flux's… accident."

"Of course." The grey mech nodded quickly, the silver blush of his paint gleaming as he sidled around his brother's chair, Barricade's stare seeming to try and bore holes in the table. "Brother, what of Jazz?" he ventured to ask, the blue optics of his eldest brother pinning him like a cyber-deer in the headlights.

"Smokescreen will keep you updated; I will see our 'guest' after I have retrieved the files on my ruined data-pad and had a discussion with our brother." The Enforcer crime boss replied neutrally, the white faceplate smoothing of any wickedness or temper as he brought his emotions to heel, his doorwings lowering and resuming their lofty tense skew. "I expect check-ins every two joor. No slouching this time."

"Brother, you worry about us so." Bluestreak teased with a coy wiggle of his doorwings, the door to the family conference room sliding open as he approached with a bouncy gait. "Have fun with your gift!"

_**===Guest Suite=== **_

Jazz sighed as he slouched in the ornate chair in the guest room opposite the middle Enforcer Brother who was casually swirling his energon with disinterest; they both sat in an almost companionable silence watching the flames on the hearth flicker and lick at the fuel rods.

"Aren't you bored of being my guard dog?" He ventured to ask, eyeing the spare energon that Smokescreen had subspaced and left on the table that was currently the only safety barrier between him and The Gambler's concealed dagger. The blue Praxian had to have one; Jazz reasoned to himself, narrowing his optics behind his visor at the casual, relaxed way Smokescreen turned his helm to deliver his response, being that relaxed while in the room with a deadly saboteur, clearly meant a concealed weapon of some sort.

"Until big brother comes to see to you personally," Smokescreen smirked, pausing to take an elegant sip of his energon as if Jazz was eager to hear every word that emitted from his vocaliser, before draining it of its contents, "I am keeping an optic on you, less you get any ideas."

"You do realise I'm the Head Saboteur of the Autobots don't you?" Jazz growled, his fingers flexing into fists as his tank rumbled hungrily, his olfactory sensors twitching at the alluring smell of the finely brewed energon sitting before him, "I can easily kill you."

"But you won't." Smokescreen said, settling his empty energon cube onto the table, leaning back with an infuriating self satisfied smirk, examining his claws, "I've been trained since I was placed in my frame to predict endless possibilities to every scenario I see, I can even predict the immediate future accurately to an eighty percent success… So you see Jazz, you're not going to be silly and attack me."

The saboteur growled, servos tightening on the armrests of his chair, before he cast his gaze back with sullen air to the crackling fire. Smokescreen, chuckled, his habit leaking a train of sweet smelling smoke to the roof where it dissipated through a large vent.

The groaning whine of the guest suite doors opening startled him, the Praxian opposite him tapping the side of his helm in with a wicked smile, his frame weight shifting to lean on one side of his chair, the mainly blue mech's elbow joint digging into the armrest as his servo supported his helm, the cygarette rolling along the line of the Gambler's oral cavity to bounce slightly, Smokescreen lightly chewing with his denta when he spoke. "Hello, Blue. Is that you off to Kaon?"

"I'm leaving for Kaon in two breems," the youngest member of the Enforcer family confirmed, not bothering to truly enter the room, instead leaning on the doorframe with a scowl, Jazz scowling right back at the Assassin as he peered around the high back of his chair. "Big Brother wants to see you in the Conference room. Hopefully it will be something about how to dispose of your frame after he's done with you Jazz."

Smokescreen chuckled, sashaying for the door, pausing to look over his shoulder at the saboteur who had risen and followed him at a safe distance, "Remember Jazz." The Gambler smiled as Silverstreak mimicked his devil's grin, "It won't be us who walking through these doors next. Best start looking for a place to hide…"

With that the doors shut in the startled Autobot's faceplate and locked with a damning automated beep of a lock engaging.

_**===Enforcer Family Conference Room=== **_

His brother was talking to another Crime Boss on the holo-communicator when Smokescreen sauntered into the room, his almost ever present wake of smoke making his brother frown in disapproval.

"I am well aware that this War has been hard on business Wheeljack." Barricade assured, his claws tapping an annoyed rhythm on the table, his optics still on his middle brother as the Gambler slouched into a chair, throwing his pedes up onto the expensive metal table. "Though I have not yet made an official choice on where Praxus' alliance lies. I will keep you all the other Bosses informed. Good orn."

With a simple flick of claws across a keyboard, Barricade shut down the communication and glared at his middle brother. "Pedes off the table."

Smokescreen shrugged and complied like a good mech, it was best just to do what Barricade asked when he was this tetchy. "Sooo, you reached a decision about who we're signing up with? Autobots or Decepticons?"

"Praxus has military purpose to either campaign." Barricade shrugged, his fingers flexing in an almost adgitated manner, "It has four hundred and twenty seven Enforcers, each with advanced hand to hand combat training and advanced weapons experience, every single one of those mechs or femmes would be invaluable to either side in this War. However, there are some draw backs… List them, you need the practice."

"We would have to share the stock piled energon that we've been saving ever since one of our ancestors had a creepy vision with whatever faction we joined," Smokescreen snickered casually beginning to list it off on his fingers as his brother nodded approvingly, "The Mob Hive would probably disband over the dispute over which faction, causing our business' to fail. Praxus would be one of the new front lines, destroying the safe haven we want to portray… The list is endless brother."

"Keep working on it." Barricade encouraged blandly, rising from his chair with a sigh, shoving a spare data-pad in Smokescreen's direction, "I am going to deal with the 'gift' you and Bluestreak left for me. After you are finished, I want you to track down Swindle; he's behind on his payments again."

"Fine." The middle brother of the Enforcer family sulked, poking the data-pad with a pout, "Why can't I come and watch you chew out Jazz?"

"Because it's going to get personal," Barricade growled darkly, making for the door, his icy presence choking the room as the light glinted off his sharpened claws that tapped directly over his spark that rested under his armour, "Very personal indeed."

_**===Guest Suite=== **_

The doors to the room banged open, the fire flicking and dying in the wake that followed the groaning doors as they collided with the metal walls, throwing the room into a shady darkness, lit only by the light of Praxus through the windows.

Jazz meditated quietly on one of the chairs, his breathing slow and controlled suddenly jumping up into an almost panicked state when he heard the familiar, almost silent pede steps of a mech he knew so well and had hoped he never would have had to see again. A rare sense of panic enveloping his processor.

His visor onlined to see the proud image of a black and white mech staring down at him, his neutral faceplates so beautifully cold, it made his spark hurt, as his ex lover, the Crime Boss of Praxus, leaned down, invading his personal bubble.

Slightly fanged denta were bared at him, poking over perfect lip plates, as ice coloured optics bored into his visor, "Hello lover." Barricade said, as his claws came to rest on Jazz's chest plates with an almost tender gesture had it not been for the sharp points digging threateningly into his paint.

"Prowl…" he breathed.

_**===Kaon=== **_

"How messy," Silverstreak sniffed disdainfully as he strode down the main street of Kaon, his optics taking in the dirt and litter strewn about what was supposed to be the 'cleanest' part of the city. His polished finish made him stand out here, the gutter dwellers shrinking away from his armed presence, while the other, slightly less grime covered mechs and femmes gave him a wide berth.

Innocently, he tilted his helm skywards putting his servos behind his helm as he walked, watching a trio of seekers screech over head with powerful whines from their thrusters which spewed golden fire. "Fliers," he snorted, rolling his optics at his airborne 'cousins', turning his gaze back to the street just in time to see the expanse of blue plating he collided with. "My apologies" He said with a bored tone, waving the mech off with a flick of his servo, making to continue on his way when the blue mech, his red optics shining with a predatory flare, blocked his exit.

"Hey pipsqueak." The titan rumbled, towering over the grey Praxian that rolled his optics up and down the frame. "Watch it."

"Yes, well." Silverstreak grumbled, trying to step around the mech, "Please don't stand in the middle of the sidewalk."

Fanged denta were bared as the mech made to throw a punch at the much smaller Praxian, only for the roar that came from gaping mouth plates to seize and become a pained whine as a gunshot crackled through the air, giving pause to anything that wasn't traffic along the road.

"Carry on." Silversteak smiled at the terrified, grimy onlookers as he strode away with a hip swaying gait, his sniper rifle barrel smoking upon his back as he left the greying frame of the blue mech sprawled on the sidewalk where the gutter dwellers quickly pounced upon the extinguished mech for parts…


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers!

Please R&R!

(Written for Ice Fata's birthday. She wanted some BluestreakXSunstreaker plug 'n' play in the 'Wild Ones' verse, so please blame her for it. It's my first time writing some 'intimate' transformers so please be nice.

Last but not least, Enjoy!)

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><p>Flux was late.<p>

Pacing like a caged animal, Bluestreak prowled to and fro across his vantage point, directly opposite from the Kaon City Council headquarters in the city's most luxurious hotel, occasionally pausing to look through his detachable sniper scope as a random bot would exit the building. The grey assassin scowled at the building across from him out of his window, his claws drumming an infuriating rhythm upon the sill.

"Where are you?" he snarled to himself, his engine revving in outrage as he realised he was missing the first half of the Gladiator Tournament not four blocks away, the roar of the crowd in the packed Colosseum was severely dampening his mood as it echoed like a dragon's battle cry around the silent surroundings.

The streets at the time of a Tournament were rightfully empty, the dirt, grime and dust swirling in a lonely foul smog along the roads as the wind drifted through the barren, dangerous streets as every class of Cybertronian in the City gathered for the coveted tournaments. His blue optics narrowed in fury as his target finally trotted out into the deserted street, his doorwings raised in high spirits as a pleasure femme, clearly one of the Council's hand-me-downs, ghosted her servos over the appendages. "Letting a pleasure drone touch your doorwings?" he clucked in disapproval, crouching down to re-magnetise his scope to his trusted rifle, the careful circle of glass he had cut with a laser, the perfect fit for his rifle's barrel and the muffler attached. "A mate's privilege, how low you've fallen in just a few joors…"

To be fair to his victim, Flux's deactivation was painless. A simple bolt of acidic plasma energy, an ancient Enforcer Family brew, was fired directly into the chest plates, the highly acidic Ph of the hot plasma chewed through the chest armour and spark chamber before the plasma imploded the spark. Silverstreak, Assassin of the Enforcer Family, never missed, it wasn't in his programming.

It was almost beautiful, the way that the green mech's frame recoiled back from the force of the blow, his companion stumbling as a green doorwing smacked her in the faceplate. Golden optics fluxed in misunderstanding before going dark forever, a delayed spray of energon exploding from the hole his plasma bullet had left in his chest plates. The Pleasure femme screeched in shock, stumbling back as the frame of her score collapsed onto the street, several gutter dwellers already leering from the alleyways, optics glowing garnet in their shadows.

Silverstreak chuckled, withdrawing his rifle's barrel from the hole in the glass, waving off the discharge of smoke that wafted from inside the gun. He subspaced his treasure, turning on his heel to the two other occupants of the room that were mag-cuffed to their berth, the two lovers, one beaten and dented, watching him with a prey like terror as he blew them an almost innocent kiss. "Don't wait up!" he cooed.

_**===Praxus=== **_

"Prowl…"

"Jazz…" the voice drawled back, talons still anchored upon his chest plates, white and black doorwings cast high like an angel of Primus. "Long time no see, my love."

"I'm not your love." The saboteur bit back, regaining some of the ground he had lost in his shock at the Praxian's appearance. "Maybe once, never again."

The black and white mech, the compliment to his own colouring made a disapproving noise, his blue optics narrowing like a lazy predator knowing his prey was an easy meal. "You really shouldn't say things that aren't true."

"Swallow your own words, Spark Breaker!" Jazz retorted with a furious snarl of his engine, attempting to strike out, lunging from his chair as the winged mech lurched back with a flash of pleasured surprise, the doorwings stabilising Prowl's fast movements with precise shivers and twitches.

"Says the mech who left me at the Altar of Primus on our Bonding Day," the black and white mech snapped back, his sudden change from placid tormentor to demon of the night, catching the captured Autobot by surprise as he was struck across the faceplate with the Praxian's claws, the sharp burn of pain raking across his cheek plating as metal flesh was torn asunder from the force of the strike.

The saboteur stumbled from the blow, his HUD flashing warnings of burst energon veins as he raised a shaking servo to his cheek plating, his vents heaving in surprise as he examined the glowing lifeforce pasted across his fingers. "You dare speak of Spark Break to me?" the monotone voice demanded, heavy venting calming abruptly into an even beat from across the room where the star of his haunted dreams stood examining his energon encrusted claws, the tips, lined with Cybertanium, Cybertron's hardest metal, glinting pink with Jazz's lifeblood. "Femmes, mechs, I've tried them all in an attempt to forget you." Prowl continued as his ex-lover backed slowly towards the wall beside the window, following the saboteur with a devil's temper. "But they didn't work; they just turned into you at the peak of overload. How is it possible for you to haunt me while you are still among the activated?"

"I don't intentionally do it." Jazz tried to placate the dangerous mech that advanced towards him, doorwings splayed, murder flashing in the cool lenses of his optics. He turned his helm, his saboteur programming kicking in, analysing the danger and exit routes. Every micro-inch screamed at him to run, tried to rationalise that his cover had been compromised and to call in backup. But he couldn't, Praxus was neutral, it was off-limits to everybot who wasn't escaping the War that cocooned his living Pit.

"But it happens." Prowl hissed, his quarry backed against the wall, servos splayed on the cool metal either side of the saboteur's helm, his chevroned helm leaning close into Jazz's personal space, their olfactory sensors almost brushing. "And you…"

The Autobot took his chance to strike, his fist curled against the wall struck like a cobra, his knuckles grazing the Praxian's faceplate as the Head of the Enforcer Family leaned back with a roar of anger, his claws raking Jazz's shoulders when the saboteur leapt for the window, crashing through the glass with a liberating cry of panicked freedom.

The saboteur hit the ground with a painful flying roll, hissing as he felt a joint in his arm snap with the pressure. He struggled to his pedes retreating to a safe distance as he saw Prowl, his personal demon from the Pit, staring down at him with an amused smirk that had broken through his tight emotional rein he had placed on himself. An old frequency flared to life as the Autobot turned and ran, shivering in revulsion as he escaped through the gates that opened for him, the living crystal gate humming with a spiritual cry, it had been an orchestrated escape, and Jazz had fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. But that didn't matter to him, all that mattered, was getting as far away from Praxus as possible and back to the gates of Iacon, where hopefully, the world would once again begin to make sense.

"We'll be seeing each other again soon, my Jazz." The monotone voice sighed through the frequency, a taste of wistful longing hidden deep in the rumble, "I'll make sure of it…"

_**===The Pits=== **_

Bluestreak grinned, his glossa silvery and flicking like a snake, licked over his lip plates in pleasure, wetting the metal he chewed on as he was entranced by the gleaming gold gladiator that accepted the roars and applause of the crowds for the spectacular slaughter of a criminal mech. It could have been an innocent mech for all Bluestreak cared, he was just here for his obsession.

His neighbouring spectator cursed, immediately onto a communication link with a friend or boss telling him a deal was off as Bluestreak rose, wandering down the stands towards the Gladiator's Exit from the Pit into their berth quarters. He slunk into a shadow with a dark glower as his golden Gladiator passed by his hiding place, loudly calling to the Pit Master for a pleasure mech or femme to be sent to his quarters. He raised his servo, forming a circle with his thumb and forefinger around the Gladiator Sunstreaker's form as he turned into his berth room, before forming a fist almost as if he had grabbed the mech into his palm. "Mine." He hissed with a pleasured purr."All mine… but first… a little acting will be called for…"

He drooped his doorwings and widened his optics, his expression turning troubled and scared, stepping from his hiding place right into the Pit Master's path, the huge hulking purple mech grunting as the grey Praxian fell dramatically onto his aft with a cry of terror. Gone was the demonic Enforcer Family Assassin, replaced by the most damning ruse of an innocent, angelic and naïve Praxian mech lost, far from home. It was his favourite act.

"You, what are you doing here?" the Pit Master snapped, grabbing the grey mech by the scruff bar and hauling him upright, shoving him down the corridor, swatting a stray doorwing out of the way as he pushed, "Room 4, now, you stupid pleasure bot!"

"Oh I'm no pleasure mech!" Bluestreak babbled innocently, inwardly growling as he shoved towards his gladiator's door, mentally marking the mech onto his 'Silence List'. "I got lost on my way back to my seat, and some nice little minibot pointed me in this direction and…

"Sure, kid. Just get in there, keep him happy and try not to deactivate in the process." The behemoth grumbled, interrupting the young mech's monologue, shoving the Praxian forcefully through the door that hissed open with a beep and tossing the smaller grey mech into the dimly lit room.

_**===Sunstreaker=== **_

The energon wouldn't come off.

The pink stains crisscrossed his arms as he took the polishing cloth to them, scrubbing forcefully, his servo gears whining and grinding as he clenched his fist with too much pressure. The liquid seemed to come alive, winding around his fore-plating and up towards his helm. Life-energy shouldn't do that, his mind whispered in paranoia, get it off, scrub it off harder, make yourself clean!

It wouldn't come off.

His door hissed open, a young mech stumbling into his door with a yelp with a forceful push from the Pit Master. "Enjoy." The purple mech grumbled before turning on his heel and closing the door behind him.

Pleasure would get rid of his delusions, it always did.

"Hi, my name is Bluestreak." The smaller mech chattered, shattering his last moments of peace before his world became a whirlwind of pleasure, heat and tangled electromagnetic fields. "What's your name? Weren't you the Gladiator just on? You were really impressive and…

"I don't care what your name is." He grumbled, beckoning the mech over with a demanding 'come hither' gesture, flopping back onto his berth, staring up at the dirt covered ceiling with a sour growl. "Just 'face with me."

"It was really cool how you… wha?" the Praxian chirruped like a sparkling, his vocaliser dying off with a static filled sound of surprise.

"Just get over here." The gold mech demanded, reaching out and dragging the mech forward, pulling the Praxian on top of him, so that the red highlighted hips were straddling his thighs.

"Sticky or Plug 'n' Play?" the red highlighted mech suddenly asked, leaning forward with a foxy expression crossing his faceplate, whispering shyly, taking the gladiator by surprise as he began to fondle wiring beneath the golden plating. "I prefer Plug 'n' Play myself, might get a sparkling if we try having a sticky interface session."

"Aren't you a pleasant surprise," Sunstreaker said , with a pleased rumble as his visions of ghostly energon evaporated, his vents huffing appreciatively as Bluestreak stroked his plating, fingertips of silver bright with hooked points, tapped and skittered over his armour, hooking underneath plains of recently polished gold, tickling, teasing and tugging at the wiring like a curious sparkling.

"I'm a big fan of yours." The grey mech breathed huskily, cooling fans whirring on as he squirmed against the thighs he sat on, grinding temptingly against the warm gold interface panel below him, working feverishly to reveal his prize. "I know all your secrets." He whispered, leaning forward to deliver the statement to Sunstreaker's audios himself, moving down as his optics flickering a low seductive shade, letting his glossa flicker out like a cyber snake testing the air, against the gladiator's oh-so-tempting lip plates.

"Not all." The warrior whispered back, with an amused chuckle as he gripped the mech's helm and dragged him down into a harsh kiss.

Their glossae tangled, like two mating Adders, denta nipping and engines rumbling as their bodies surged together, prevented from truly connecting as their panels remained closed.

"Give up yet?" Bluestreak purred, his claws tugging and stroking wires, concentrating his EM field into his fingers, delivering tiny electric pulses into every wire he touched, heightening the gladiator's heated pleasure as energy locked and released joints and tender nerve wires in a painfully erotic tempo.

The golden mech purred, as the mech above him reached down to claw at his interface panel, sharp points leaving smooth grooves in the gold paint that flaked away at the demanding stroke. The warrior hissed, as he felt his upper panel auto-release, the Socket and Plug resting side by side, both flickering with a tingle of excess energy, prepared for a hardline connection.

Silver tipped claws danced over the components, a hooked curve scratching at the USB like Plug as the gladiator writhed with a pleased whine, crying out as a grey servo drew out the Plug, the gold cable extending from its internal reel, the quiet whirr and click seeming to echo as Bluestreak tugged it all the way out, examining the Plug critically almost as if he was checking for contaminants.

Puzzled, he reached out, his thumbs massaging the hip armour of his berth partner, his bright fingers delving into wiring vital for locomotion and oh-so-sensitive to touch. "So impatient," he partner teased as the grey upper panel finally slid open, reaching in with an almost urgent motion and tugging out the Plug, twisting both gold and grey together in a helix, raising both ends to his lip plates to lick the lightning from their tips before he struck their Plugs in the opposite's Sockets like Primus' Judgement.

He swallowed the Gladiator's passionate cry with a kiss, the lightning from their Plugs conducted onto his glossa rippling back and forth between their oral cavities.

The two hardlines pulsed, energy jumping between the entwined Plug cables as they forcefully tried to dominate the other. Bluestreak's pulses were like waves, never receding for long, before washing over his heated response with a cocoon of ice.

The waves of cold mindless data had him in its coils, a scarf of pulsing, bitter chill, before an unexpected heat cut through his bliss hazed processor. It blistered and evaporated the coding of his obsession with being clean; halving it with an almost agonising tear that only heightened his approaching overload. Cold data flooded into the space, as he stared up at his berth partner that smiled down at him like a fallen Primus angel. The pulsing data filled the hole in his coding, an obsession taking root. He could already see his future dreams of a grey Praxian dancing erotically and grinding into his beautiful paint.

"You're mine Sunstreaker." The Praxian, Bluestreak, his obsession, whispered, as they both crested the peak of overload, their EM fields Crackling with pure blue lightning, a mutal obsession now shared. "You're all mine…"


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers!

Please R&R

(Thanks to everybody who has reviewed this so far, I'm ecstatic that you are all loving this as much as I enjoy writing it! Enjoy!)

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><p><em><strong>===Prowl===<strong>_

Growling, Prowl paced to and fro before his broken window in the guest suite, his claws dripping with Jazz's energon. The Praxian was a storm of complex emotions, a will to control warring with a Unicron sized rage. He coding from his battle computer was in overdrive, an emotion destroying wave of logic filling his processor as his faceplate cleared of all malice, optics dimming back to their pale ice.

"What a waste of my time." He muttered to himself, doorwings of black and white flicking with distain as a logic driven plan rearranged itself within his helm, "Adding another variable that could go wrong…"

The black and white mech turned on his pede and stalked from the room, the servant, having lingered in fear of his master's shadow, bowed low as the gaze of the Hive Boss rested on his pale faceplates. "Repair the window and clean the room. Mention not a word of what transpired here or I will cut out your glossa."

"Yes my Lord Barricade." The pale creature nodded briskly, darting off down the corridor as if a demon from the pit was nipping at his heels.

The silent, shadowy corridor welcomed the black and white frame of the Head of the Enforcer family, black melting into black as white became blended with dying natural light filtered through the windows as the lights of his city began to snuff out one by one, like dying sparks, signalling the start of the recharge cycle.

He was a spectre in his own home, the only noise that disturbed him; the low cursing of his Middle Brother as he looked over his notes on each of the factions continuing to coil their folds ever closer to Praxus' gates. He flushed his vents with an airy mockery, if both factions in this Civil War were Cyber-snakes; Praxus was a Turbo-hawk in the guise of a defenceless hummingbird. When all fell away, his city would rise on the embers like the great mythical cyber-phoenix of the ancient tales.

If only he could erase Jazz from his thoughts, then his perfect world would be in tantalising reach.

_**===Bluestreak=== **_

"Recharge soundly, my Gladiator." The grey mech murmured softly against the silver lip-plates of his obsession, sliding from the gold warrior's side like water, frame baring the activities of his conquest in the berth, his silver glinted grey paint scraped with golden transfers at his pelvis and chest.

Sunstreaker did not stir save for systems grumbling when Bluestreak's heat dipped and rolled away from the gold plating.

"Dream of me… Come and find me…" He purred into the audio fin, leaning down to rake his silver glossa along an exotic looking fin. "Praxus…" He cooed as the Gladiator's faceplate creased with a frown in his recharge. "Catch me if you can... My Sunstreaker…" He taunted, slipping from the room like a breeze.

As the door shut, the grey mech peered over his shoulder and fluttering doorwings to leer at the sight of his Gladiator, his optics flashing a possessive red.

An obsession had taken root, Silverstreak smiled dreamily as he stalked the quiet dark hall of the barracks for the prized Gladiators of Kaon, a wolf in the flock. The board was finally set; the game would soon begin…

The grey assassin left the Arena; his doorwings arched like a demon, the gutter dwellers, hissing and fleeng his aura. "Back to your shadows little fools." Silverstreak snickered, walking down the middle of the deserted road. No bots walked the Kaon recharge cycle. It was suicide to any normal mech or femme. "I am not for you, mechs of the darkness." He said to himself as a black plated gutter dweller in his path scrabbled away from the sight of his sniper rifle lanced and primed, a threat to any creature that dared to stray too close.

He reached the station with a record of only two shots fired: One to scare and doom a gutter dweller that had grown to bold, and another that pierced a pleasure femme's helm as she tried to 'coax' him into her berth, she just couldn't have left him alone after the first 'no' could she? Hence, her deactivation was her own fault entirely. He greeted the Enforcer Family's private transport driver that loitered with a professional aura outside the Kaon station, the transport sitting sleek and shiny in the dull light of Cybertron's moons. A simple smug flutter of his doorwings was his greeting as the maroon femme replied in her customary manner;

"Greetings Master Silverstreak. Did you enjoy your orn?"

"Indeed I did." He purred, not bothering to look behind him as the dull transport driver matched his brisk, bouncing gait with her precise, clipped strides. "Home I think." He pondered aloud, tapping a pede on the sidewalk in front of the grand station as the femme whose designation he could never remember opened the transport door for him, her doorwings submissively tilted down in subservience, "Big Brother dearest will be interested to know of my mission's success."

"Very good sir."

_**===Prowl==Praxus== Vorns Earlier=== **_

_The heavy beats pulsed through the atmosphere of Praxus. Neighbours around the district, groaning, turned off their audios and rolled over in an attempt to return to recharge, irritated by the noise. The night life of Cybertron was in full swing, lights of every colour flashing and spotlighting the sky as the younger bots and the darker side of Cybertron moved into play with the dimming of the street lights. _

_The Club was the central hub of gossip. It was made famous for its gossip chains and rare elixirs of brewed High Grade energon. Anybody that wanted gossip went to the club; be they the lowest commoner or the prettiest of nobles. The general population was unaware of the secondary use for the club. _

_It had been the Enforcer Family's source of gossip and information for generations, one of the most precious heirlooms in the vast collection that had gradually been growing for centi-vorns. _

_A heavy bass beat rubbed and skimmed over his sensitive doorwings as he stepped into the club, his middle brother, Smokescreen to the family, Gambler to the city, practically vibrated on the spot in excitement, winglets aflutter when he caught sight of the packed gambling tables, while his youngest brother, Bluestreak to the waking orn, Silverstreak to the darkness of the recharge cycle, bounced at the view of several shooting games against the far wall. He allowed himself to smile in the privacy of his processor at their marvelling. It was their first time in his favourite place, a secret now shared between them, strengthening their bond. _

"_Do not stray." He commanded, his voice like a knife's edge, reaching forward to give a warning squeeze to both little brothers' doorwings, in a gesture that only a big brother was permitted to give, tugging them in the direction of the private balcony area for the rich and famous of Praxus and the various important mecha of its surrounding neighbours. _

_A Senator of Praxus, firmly under his family's sway greeted them, his greedy optics roaming over the black and white mech before him. "Greetings Barricade, Head of the Enforcer Family." He purred, his vocaliser drugged with High Grade making Prowl's olfactory sensor wrinkle slightly in distaste. "Have you considered the proposal the Council has put out to you?" _

"_Patience, Senator Shield." He soothed with his cold, professional persona as Smokescreen's attention wandered towards the card game that a polished servant was currently dealing out. Bluestreak stood rigidly beside him, his vision trained on the Senator with a hawk like gaze, cataloguing weaknesses and pressure points, less the tipsy Senator dared to try and touch his Big Brother. "The files are long and I have other duties to attend to. Not all of my waking moments are centred on our city's minor traffic flaws."_

_Chastised, Shield bowed and scuttled away as Prowl proceeded to his favourite seat overlooking the Enforcer Family's club. Bluestreak and Smokescreen sat across from him, one elegantly poised while the elder slouched, their doorwings tilting and fluttering a conversation; their words useless as music stole the purpose of their vocalisers._

_The eldest of the trio ignored them, his gaze cast out to the dance floor where tourists and residents of the city tried out the latest dance moves to the pulsing music. The wheeling lights on the roof changed colours and shades of the paint of various dancers in a clash of wild, dizzying sensations that pleasured his optics. _

"_I'm going to dance." He announced, Smokescreen spitting out his energon in surprise at his statement as Bluestreak's doorwings flared up and back in shock. _

"_Brother…" Bluestreak questioned, his helm tilting in curiosity. "Are you well?" _

"_Everyone has their habits, Bluestreak." He muttered, his monotone laced with amusement, reaching out to mingle his electromagnetic field with his brothers in an effort for them to try and understand. "Smokescreen has his smoking habits, I have mine…" _

_The middle brother stuck out his glossa like a sparkling, his doorwings branded with a '38' fluttering in an arch, showing his amusement for all to see, when the Eldest of the Enforcer Family descended the stairs with the poise of the Nobility they were bred for._

_His black and white plating shone under the lights as he swayed and danced between couples, a beacon of elegance with no need for a matching partner. Nobody ever danced close, Praxians staying clear with respective tilts and shimmers of their doorwings, distracting and luring the tourists away with their displays. But one didn't heed his desire to dance alone. _

_His optics locked with a challenging visor of azure crystal, movements mirrored and copied to the point Prowl thought with an illogical strain that this mech was reading his processor like a datafile. _

_The song ended with them breathing in close, vents puffing atmosphere, optics and visor brightened with their exigent, black and white plating of both mechs entwined to the point the spectators around them weren't sure which one started and the other began. _

"_Designation's Jazz." The unknown visored mech grinned as he stared in a little awe, the battle computer that had been gifted to him when he first awoke into the world working overtime weighing up every possibility of the mech's intentions. _

"_Prowl," he said in return, surprising himself by giving his real name, usually buried deep under Barricade's presence. "my designation is Prowl…" _

_**===Ironhide=== **_

The Iacon base was quiet at this time in the recharge cycle, he noted with a disgruntled huff of his vents, checking over his rifle as his lookout partner, the newly promoted engineer come inventor, Wheeljack gazed over the horizon from their vantage point on the base's large fortified gates. "Any Decepticons to shoot?" he asked with a lazy drawl, snapping the charged cartridge of his blaster back into the rifle with a practiced ease.

"Nope." The odd mech chirped, his mysterious audio fins that every medic found fascinating, lighting up with a bright rainbow of colour signalling the mech's quicksilver emotions. The rust red Weapon specialist found himself snickering when he stared at them too long. The poor Inventor was a walking flashing target when the moons of Cybertron ruled the sky. "I must say though, I didn't think Officers actually did any Watchtower work."

"Optimus likes to make sure we're all pulling our weight." He shrugged before offering the newbie a grin, "Plus I think he wants to keep you away from the lab, I've never seen a mech visit Ratchet willingly so much in one cycle."

"It's either that or I will bleed out. Ratchet is just too fun to wind up." Wheeljack chirred with a suspicious posh titter that Ironhide had heard Mirage use when Hound had supplied the blue and white noble-turned-spy with too much High Grade. Odd when the Inventor claimed he was as common as the grime that slicked Kaon's streets. "Did you hear about Jazz? Shame, I never really got to speak to him."

"A saboteur's life is fraught with dangers." Ironhide grumbled, his good humour souring in a cringe. "He broke his mentor's record as the longest Third in Command in Autobot history. Poor kid, always the good that deactivate young."

"Optimus will be promoting that Noble spy, Mirage no?" the Engineering Officer prodded, his fins flashing purple with curiosity, an undertone of yellow veins confusing his optics as he turned to try and focus on the Inventor's optics to deliver his answer.

"Probably." The Weapon Specialist sighed, rising to his pedes and gazing down at the city before them, the buildings burnt around the edges and crumbling sorrowfully at their foundations from bombs."Hey… what's that?" he muttered, pointing at a stumbling figure hugging close to the shadows of the buildings.

"Seems like it's a mech," Wheeljack commented, leaning over the railing, his servos gripping the rail, preventing a fall to his deactivation. "I thought all Saboteurs were accounted for on base?"

"They are." Ironhide growled, one of his servos transforming into a cannon and held out at the shadowy mech that took shelter in the darkness where only the fortified base's spotlights could reach. He held up his free servo to his helm and signalled Cliffjumper who was leaning dozing on his spotlight post. "Cliffjumper, give me some light fourth building down to the right."

The mech illuminated made Ironhide cry out as a black painted servo shielded a familiar azure visor smeared with his own energon. Wheeljack leaned back in surprise as the rust red mech ran by him to the stairs, bellowing down his communication link for Optimus. Audio fins darkened a deep navy and optics narrowed down at the Third in Command that had miraculously returned to Iacon with claw marks running down his shoulder struts and faceplate's cheek, spotlighted, pinned by the white beam to his hiding place as Autobots rushed to aid him.

"So you let him go Barricade." He murmured as he leant a hip against the railing, crossing his arms in puzzlement, frowning behind his mask. "What are you up to Hive Leader? What can of driller-worms have you just unleashed?"


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers

Please R&R

(Ice Fata poked and prodded me until I got off my aft and wrote this. Literally. It's really hard to watch the new anime Star Fata brings over with Ice fata pointing demandingly at an open document containing this chapter... -_-; Note to self: switch off computer when Ice Fata is in the house... Thank you to everybody who reviewed the last chapter! Enjoy!)

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><p><strong><em><span>===Prowl=== <span>_**

Relaxing into the plush chair of his private office, the black and white, unofficial ruler of Praxus fiddled absentmindedly with his ornate stylus as he filed his thoughts through his internal Battle Computer, the incredible circuitry systematically deleting the spontaneous lines of code that revolved around Jazz's presence in his thoughts. The hardware gave up after the fifth line of code reappeared, Prowl's Computer shuffling it into a secure file out of the way. Barricade chuckled realising that the Battle Computer, ingrained in his helm was one of the only things he would gladly thank his creators for, Primus bless their deceased sparks, even if he was the one to offline them…

Every plan was knitting together like a tapestry, under his talented clawed servos.

With a flick of his wings he registered Smokescreen arguing with somebody on his communication link further down the hall, probably picking a bolt with his supplier of Cygarettes, which were specially imported direct from an underground business dealer in Kaon, judging by the pacing his middle brother was doing, it was a pretty heated discussion.

The mansion around him quietened, the servants knowing to keep away from the Enforcer Family brothers when they were swimming in their own private business. It was in the quiet times like this, Barricade liked to sit with his wings flared in the darkness of his lair, like a spider waiting for a foolish fly to become ensnared, relishing in the control he had over everything that happened in the immediate vicinity. His neutral expression, one of many pet hates about him the Praxus Council had whined about, slowly curved into a smile. As slow as a gridlocked highway, Prowl felt his lip-plates twist up as his Battle Computer, lodged firmly in his helm sent a grumpy warning that the smug, cocky feeling he was experiencing was illogical and had no place in his mind when his plans were only a third done.

The Head of the Enforcer Family cast his gaze out over his city, the high spires shadows against the silver face of the moons spinning across the sky in an ancient dance. The crystals in the gardens hummed and twirled in the methane, a natural aria for the moons. Praxus was beautiful in its recharge.

To his disgruntlement, the terminal on his personal desk lit up the dark office, stinging his optics with fake light, his Communication Link chimed with a request, direct from Iacon, heavily encrypted with special codes that Prowl himself had invented. "Ahh, Wheeljack." He rumbled, pleased when his terminal flared into life, the visage of the inventor fuzzy with the static of a long range communication, "How are you?"

"What are you doing letting Jazz wander back here to Iacon barely scratched?" the engineer hissed, his blast mask retracting to reveal the scared lip-plates and half fanged denta of the inventor, the audio fins gracing his helm lighting up with an unpleasant ruby shade that reminded the Eldest brother of the Enforcer Family that he still had to deal with Megatron when he learned of Jazz's 'escape'. "The Prime wants details of what happened! Are you mad Barricade? He'll think Praxus has been wooed to the Decepticon side!"

"No he won't," Barricade purred with a smug huff of his vents, tapping a claw upside his helm as he replied to his Sire's brother, "I have everything under control Uncle, the Praxus Council will play innocent as they always have to any enquiries made by both factions, benevolent or barbaric. Jazz will try to sway Optimus away from Praxus, away from me, but from what you have told me dear Uncle, the Prime is a curious creature, he will come to Praxus, he will come straight to my city's gates and demand a session with the Council."

"The Prime is fragging dangerous." The mech stationed in Iacon grumbled crossing his arms and scowling at his eldest Nephew, flicking the short, blade like doorwings; the thin appendages the unfortunate result of an experiment gone wrong in the Inventors younger vorns, "When you asked me to join the Autobots to keep tabs on them, I didn't expect to run into your Mistake. In case you've purged your memory bank, he will recognise me. I was a regular visitor to your estate."

"Jazz has a certain value that prevents me from offlining him at this precise moment." The black and white mech reasoned with the seasoned Crime Lord of Iacon, spreading his arms with an uncommonly animated 'It's out of my servos now' gesture which his esteemed Uncle frowned openly at, the colour indicators flashing a subtle garnet.

"Very well, I will hold my council on the matter until I have reason to intervene." Wheeljack grumbled, his small doorwings rolling in a disapproving arch. Not that the Engineer would ever receive much sensory input again after the explosion in his youth had claimed his once graceful doorwings. The Inventor's image turning with a startled jerk as the blast doors to his lab opened with a loud, shrill chime, the lock having been overridden with another Autobot Officer's code, "I will contact you later to arrange the Hive Meeting, Wheeljack out."

His Uncle cut the communication line, throwing Prowl's faceplate back into the shadow of the recharge cycle lighting of Praxus, shining and reflecting from the beautiful crystals outside his window as the main gates to the Enforcer Estate groaned open allowing a familiar transport to enter the grounds.

"It appears Bluestreak has returned with news." He muttered to himself, his claws digging rhythmically into the desk of his Office with loud clicking screeches as another plan stored within his battle computer, crossed itself off of the list.

**_===Wheeljack=== _**

Still facing his now shut off terminal; the new Autobot Engineer didn't bother to turn to face the intruder into his domain. "What is it Ratchet?" he asked, activating the coding to prompt his blast mask back across his face, his audio fins flashing a calm blue.

"Officer meeting, I've just finished patching up Jazz." The medic groused, cursing when he tripped over a half complete invention to get to Wheeljack's desk. "The glitch is jumping around like a nano-flea, insistent on 'spilling details' to Prime. Knowing you, I've come to get you, since you would have missed the memo. It was weird though, I thought I heard something about a Hive Meeting when I walked in." Ratchet shrugged as the mostly white and grey inventor stiffened gripping his desk tightly, his retractable talons inching out into the weaker metal of his work bench with quiet, shy squeals of yielding framework.

"Oh?" Wheeljack commented in feigned surprise, shifting a servo so that it was shielded by his frame mass, withdrawing a simple Decepticon branded blaster from his subspace as his optics shone dark crimson. If he needed to escape, might as well blame it on the opposite faction. "What else did you hear?" he asked with a teasing lilt, pretending to fiddle with some wires from a loose mother board, feeling the faint vibrations in the air along the ruined sensors in his destroyed doorwings as Ratchet came closer. He could almost feel the distortion in the air as Ratchet's intakes vented. It was probably wishful thinking.

"No, should I have?" the medic asked, concern colouring his voice as he warily checked around him, probably looking about for the Decepticon's little spies in the form of Soundwave's cassettes between the stockpiled, half completed, projects Wheeljack was insistent on keeping.

Frowning behind his mask, the Crime Lord of Iacon withdrew his talons and sub-spaced his blaster before turning around with a bright blue flare of his helm fins, conveying amusement. "So paranoid, Ratchet!" he cooed, bouncing over to the surprised medic, grabbing his servo and leading him out of his lab, only letting go when the blast doors hissed shut and locked behind them.

Ratchet rolled his optics with a grumpy grunt of embarrassed acknowledgement, swatting at the back of Wheeljack's helm with his favourite wrench as they walked towards the command deck, completely content in each other's company, making Wheeljack snicker to himself quietly. If only the CMO of the Autobots knew how close he just came to deactivation, though he supposed it would be a shame to terminate the medic, he was growing rather fond of him.

Sighing, Wheeljack resigned himself for a few joors of more political nonsense the Iaconian Council was feeding to the Prime. He greeted Ironhide with a casual nod of his helm as he tailed Ratchet into the Meeting Room, flashing a bright greeting of rainbow with soundless words to the rest of the table.

"Anybody seen Jazz and Prime?" Ratchet asked as he noticed that both stars of the meeting were absent.

"We're here Ratchet." The Prime's seemingly god touched rumble rang out as the massive mech stepped into the room, his helm held high and proud, Jazz trailing behind him. "Greetings all. Jazz. Please give your statement of what happened."

The Officers and the Prime, as one, looked to the hastily repaired saboteur, who by rights shouldn't have been standing before them dented and injured as he was at the head of the table. Black and white plating shimmered under the lighting, the black servos of the Head of Special Operations supporting his weight on the table as Wheeljack allowed himself to sink back into his chair, just out of peripheral range from all the other mechs present. The Engineer's optics narrowed as Jazz looked about the Officers that had gathered to hear his mission report.

Wheeljack couldn't help but hope that Jazz's optics were wide and frightened behind his visor when the saboteur locked gazes with him.

**_===Praxus= Vorns earlier=== _**

_The news had spread like wild fire between the ranks of the Praxians, the whispers echoing from the lowest femme to the highest ranked council member, coiling and twisting its way down the gossip vine of every bar and club, whispered into the audios of every other Crime Lord on Cybertron by their faithful spies. _

_Barricade, Eldest of the Enforcer Family and Unofficial Ruler of Praxus was_ courting.

_The influence that Barricade's new interest flaunted over the Lord of Praxus was astounding and disturbing all at once. The most feared Praxian in history now walked with a tender expression whenever the mech of his affections was near, more often than not, their servos would be entwined._

_Prowl couldn't help but smile as Jazz agreed to his offer of afternoon energon, the other black and white mech bestowing him with a dazzling smile that made Barricade's spark pulse a little faster, the energon rushing through his plastic veins like a rushing waterfall. "So where are we going?" the visored mech asked, a bounce in his careful, graceful steps that matched Prowl's natural, noble, elegance. _

_"Just my favourite place." Prowl teased back, the Enforcer Family coat of arms, emblazed on both shoulders, mimicking the real police that would wander past in controlled loops, forever checking in on the city's controller. No wonder Jazz thought he was an Enforcer, they all sported black and white colour schemes and his same stoic expression, Prowl thought it was sweet. "You'll like it, it has the most interesting High Grade brews you'll ever taste. There is also a band stage." _

_"Really?" Jazz grinned, his armour vibrating in what Prowl's battle computer grudgingly identified as excitement. "Who plays there?" _

_"Beginner bands normally play there, but it is mostly just used for karaoke…" the black and white doorwinged mech smiled softly, his doorwings fluttering in a shy arch._

_Jazz tilted his helm with a chuckle, reaching out a servo to gently stroke along the top of Prowl's doorwing with an unsure finger. Barricade chuckled, voicing the intimate approval of the gesture with a low purr of his engine, even as Smokescreen and Bluestreak voiced their disapproval of the action over a private communication link. It was a mate's privilege to touch the doorwings of their chosen, never a stranger. _

_"Quiet, the both of you." He rumbled when Jazz became distracted by a police chase starting just down the street, the sirens wailing and slicing the air like tossed knives. "It is my choice." _

_"But brother…" they whined, submissive, sparkling like in their attempted innocence. _

_"I will explain later." He reported with a clipped tone, strict and dark, severing the line as Jazz turned back to him a dazzling exhilarated look brightening his visor as they reached the brightly lit entrance to the bar. _

_The stage was empty as they took their seats, ushered in with apologies spilling from the bartender's vocaliser as Jazz assured him that they were in no rush. Prowl sat back and watched with a smirk at the bartender's shocked look as Jazz pointed out a drink from the selection for the both of them. _

_"Sir?" the beige mech asked, a cleaning cloth dangling from his nervously twitching servos, looking from approval from his Lord that the visored mech was free to order for the pair. _

_"Exactly what he ordered, Shake." Prowl nodded slowly, his emotion coloured voice, used only for Jazz's benefit, dampening back into a monotone fit for a dark lord of his position. _

_"Of course sir, right away sir." The sputtering mech nodded, zipping back to the bar, his doorwings fluttering in distress as Jazz giggled, shuffling a little closer to Prowl with a seductive grin. _

_"You always that commanding Prowler?" the visored mech cooed at him, his electromagnetic field brushing tantalising against the Prowl's that was always tightly wound against his frame. _

_"Only sometimes my Jazz." Prowl purred back, deliberately wetting his lips with a coy flick of his glossa. "Only sometimes…" _


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers!

Please R&R

(Thanks to everybody who is enjoying this and has reviewed and faved! I am so loving my head cannon for this... Enjoy!)

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><p><em><strong>===Smokescreen=== <strong>_

Standing with a casual disinterested air in the doorway to his brother's office, the Gambler withdrew his last Cygarette from his subspace, carefully snapping his claws together to create the spark that would light the internal fuel of his addiction.

His supplier of his specially servo blended and crafted Cygarettes; scheduled to make a delivery in the morning joors yesterorn, had not delivered, thus, now the Gambler was hot on his trail to claim his already bought and paid for package. But he had regretfully had to dismiss his mission until later as Prowl had demanded his presence, and one didn't disobey their Big Brother; Barricade was far too important to him for petty rebellion.

Prowl must have sensed his agitation, inviting him to play a game of cards while Bluestreak exuberantly chattered about how processor numbingly brilliant the experience of interfacing with a Warrior Class framed gladiator was, bouncing in the plush luxurious seats of Barricade's personal office.

He inhaled from his habit deeply, the smoke that was released from the substance that burned within the Cygarette, packed full of special magnetic particles, was filtered through his frame and into two hidden canisters under his protective, lightweight shoulder armour. The ash like particles, once inhaled were chemically changed and polarised by the heat of the Cygarette, making them easy to manipulate into a blinding cloud with his powerful servo magnets after the dark particles were released, thus the reasoning for his name that was bestowed upon him the orn he detached from his Carrier's spark. And like his frame had been a gift from their Uncle Wheeljack, his name had been a gift from Prowl.

He exhaled the useless smoke, the dark ash cloud that he inhaled puffing out in a hazy light grey fog as his systems sifted and filtered out every magnetic particle. Leaning back into his chair, he dealt his family heirloom out onto the desk before his black and white brother, Bluestreak's wild talk washing over their audios as he described, in detail, the figure of the golden mech he had so recently seduced into the berth.

He flared his crystal cards in a fan, shuffling his Cygarette to the corner of his oral cavity with his glossa, his poker face a picture of artist's emotion to his brother's frozen frown.

"I have some business to deal with in the market once the Recharge Cycle ends." Barricade commented, gently placing down the violet hued crystal card and drawing another from the stack as they began their simple, almost childish game they had played by Bluestreak's crib side when the youngest of the Enforcer Family was but a tiny Sparkling, clicking, warbling and giggling his way into their lives. "I will accompany you into the city tomorrow Smokescreen. While I take care of business, you take care of that dealer. Bluestreak…"

The youngest of them quietened, ever attentive to their Big Brother's needs as Smokescreen gave a low hum of acknowledgement, also trading out a few of the cards in his hands for a better advantage against his brother. He ruffled his wings, the metal shuddering as he flexed and arched the doorwings in a casual gesture of a lazy yawn.

"I do believe you have unfinished business in the form of that gladiator." Prowl rumbled, his blue optics shifting from his set of cards to watch their little brother's reaction. His laser like gaze stating one of the first rules that Barricade had taught them: 'Unfinished Business is a threat'.

"He's coming to me." Bluestreak assured them with a self satisfied purr, clacking his claws together like a predator's beak, his silver tinted grey doorwings fluttering proudly.

Barricade's optics flickered, a rare, unsure, nano-click change, the blue hues of the light filaments that composed his optics flashing from ice to azure and back. "I trust your judgement on the situation." He finally said, Bluestreak's tense posture slowly unwinding as he purred at the trust his brother had just vocalised towards him, launching back into his passionate tirade.

Smokescreen shifted as Prowl threw down his cards, a perfect set trumping his own meagre half collected pair. He took losing to his brother with grace and a nod of his helm; the cards of his deck obviously favoured the Eldest of their Family.

"Thank you for the game brother." He muttered sweeping the palm of his servo across the table, merging the violet hued, ruby cyber-spider webbed cards into a perfect stack, before banishing them to his subspace, rolling his Cygarette with his glossa.

"As long as you are no longer vexed, Smokey," Prowl commented waved him off with a casual flick of his claws his doorwings giving a shallow weave to the right, a gentle sign of affection, accented by the use of the Gambler's youngling-hood nickname. "Recharge on your plan to repay Swindle with his sluggish punctuality." The powerful Praxian advised, rising from his chair, his brothers jerking to stand with him, with attentive flares of their doorwings. "Good Recharge to you both, my beloveds."

"Good Recharge brother." The bowed slightly, filing out the door, leaving their eldest brother to his business as they noticed the flashing inbox symbol on his terminal.

_**===Wheeljack=== **_

"Jazz?" Optimus prompted, the saboteur having frozen when he locked gazes with the new Head of Engineering, who was staring back with an amused dancing flicker of his helm fins.

Wheeljack smiled behind his blast mask, a twisted smirk, scarred by explosions, that was contradicted by his now surprised, wide optics as Jazz finally got his vocaliser running.

"You!" the black and white saboteur nearly shrieked an accusing finger jabbing at him from across the table, the Third in Command's voice laced with horror and an underlying note of hysterics.

"Wheeljack?" Ratchet asked in confusion, the medic beside him the only one who didn't turn to stare back and forth between the Inventor and the Saboteur, like they were watching a fast paced tennis match. "Jazz… Wheeljack only got this position two orns ago, just after you left for that mission. How can you possibly know him?"

"He's in league with the Praxian Nobles." Jazz's vocaliser hissed with distressed static, his visor blinking in stress.

"Me?" he giggled in faux disbelief, his helm fins lighting up a pleased cobalt, "You must have me mixed up with somebot else… uh… Jazz isn't it? I'm from downtown Iacon."

"You work for your Nephew!" the black and white mech denied with an aggressive snarl, "You work for Barricade!"

"Who's Barricade?" Optimus interjected, his thunderous rumble stilling any action Jazz might have made towards him. A thrill of fear passed over Wheeljack, his processors, the best of his generation, until Prowl was sparked, working over time, calculations zipping and crossing along his tangible thought network. _Protect the Family, protect your nephews with your spark_, his processor whispered.

"The Mob Elder." Jazz hissed jaggedly, "he's the one who controls everything in the Hive _and_ in his home city. The way Praxus is run, who owns a building there, who deals in the market, the Council of Praxus, everything. He's even stringing Megatron along with the temptation of having Praxus as his ally!"

"Optimus…" Jumpstart, the resident tactician, gestured worriedly to the Prime, "If Megatron gains Praxus…"

"It's game over." Ironhide interrupted, with a grievous frown, "I've seen their Enforcers in action. Each individual is as good as one of our seasoned troops."

"Ratchet." The chosen Prime rumbled, resting a servo on Jazz's shoulder strut, clear worry for the Polyhexian deepening his tone as he anchored his friend. "Take Jazz to the Medical Bay, we will continue this when he is in full working condition. Jumpstart, contact the Iaconian Council and get me a meeting with the Praxian Senators. I want to meet this Barricade faceplate to faceplate…"

"Prime!" Jazz implored jerking himself from the larger mech's grip, as Ratchet rose to accompany the injured saboteur back to the medical bay. "You can't! It's what he wants! You'll be playing right into his twisted servos!"

"It is a risk we have to take Jazz." The Matrix Barer sighed, with a soft pat to Jazz's arm as Ratchet gave the younger mech a shove in the direction of the doors. "I expect to have a full report on your encounter with Barricade in my Office later, once you have been repaired."

As the other Officers murmured among themselves at the disrespectful outburst when the saboteur was shown to the Medical Bay, Wheeljack allowed himself to grin, his helm fins brightly flashing a rainbow of silent glee, however, he sobered as he realised that Jazz could potentially turn Ratchet's processor against him.

Even as he wished Ironhide a good recharge, he stalked towards the Medical Bay and his Lab. It was time to bid his nephew's ex a little visit…

_**===Jazz=== **_

Ratchet had left him fretting on a medical berth, various trinkets of medical equipment were hooked up to his lines, monitoring his now, above average spark-rate, processor input and output, with a great little device that would supply Jazz's frame with enough relaxants to dope himself stupid for cycles. The medic had long left the main Medical Bay for the fold away berth in his office so that he was always near, should an unexpected emergency occur.

As it was, Jazz couldn't relax, even with the Special Operations upgrades that were dulling the effects of the relaxants; his thought network was tripping over itself with agitation, presenting the Third in Command of the Autobots with a blisteringly annoying helm ache. However it couldn't distract him from the glaringly, damning fact that lay just on the other side of the Med Bay doors.

Wheeljack, the Crime Lord of Iacon, was Prime's new Head of Engineering.

"You know…" the chilling voice of a devil chuckled lightly as the Med Bay doors opened almost as if the saboteur's thoughts had summoned the Iaconian Mob Boss, the dark of the room lighting up a violent ruby as Wheeljack's colour indicators flared on, spotlighting Jazz's berth. "I was wondering if Prowl was going to kill you or not. It seems my nephew still thinks you're worth something alive…"

"That means I'm untouchable then." He growled back in defiance, his blue visor flashing bright, chasing away the bloody red, dissolving the crimson into a bruised purple as the Inventor considered him with a pinprick blue gaze. "You can't do anything to me until Prowl orders it."

"Hiding behind Barricade's… affections for you, will only enrage me further, Jazz." The scarred Praxian rumbled, advancing on the mech in the berth, the blast mask retreating to reveal a wicked, twisted smile as the saboteur's spark rate shot up on the meter, inching towards the alarm trigger as an energon blade, glowing pink in the darkness was pointed at the black and white mech's neck cabling, aimed from the foot of the berth. "He trusted you, he loved you, he let you into his inner circle where only his brother's and I reside, and yet you thanked him by leaving him at the Alter of Primus on the biggest, holiest orn of your lives. You _hurt_ my family. My, my, Jazz, why wouldn't I want to deactivate you?"

"He never told me he was the Crime Lord of Praxus." The saboteur hissed, the spark rate monitor calming with his rage, programming slipping into the Special Operations coding, the possibilities of where that knife could end up, flashing through his processors with all the speed of a genius with a math problem to solve. "Our relationship was based on a lie! If it hadn't been for Smokescreen…"

"Wheeljack!" Ratchet's voice had the lights of the Medical Bay snapping on, to reveal the Chief Medical Officer looking groggy and a little grumpy, half leaning on his office's doorway as he rubbed at his optics, cutting off Jazz's mournful, anger filled monologue. "Please don't tell me you've blown off your servo again, or I swear I'm going to lock you in an empty storage room to save me the helm ache of treating you every orn."

Wheeljack's helm fins immediately flashed blue, his blast mask slamming closed as he crinkled his optics in what could have been a snarl of anger or his cover of a happy go lucky engineer. "Sorry Ratchet, I was just wishing Jazz a fast recovery before I headed to my own berth for the Recharge Cycle!" he exuberantly chirped making Jazz wince with the emotional whiplash.

An almost fond annoyance crossed Ratchet's faceplate as he made an exaggerated 'shoo' motion, threateningly waving a wrench in his other servo, "Get out of here, you sparkling, only you scientists want to make friends at unreasonable joors."

Giggling, Wheeljack trotted towards the doors as the wrench predictably flew through the air at his helm. "See you later Ratchet!"

"Playful idiot." The mostly white medic grumbled, turning to Jazz as the saboteur gave a quick shudder of his plating in apparent distress. "Just ignore him Jazz. He's excited to see a new mech. You'll get on with him in no time. Believe me Jazz, we've had the Special Operations check and double check his profile and history, he's not the mech you think he is."

"No," Jazz muttered sourly, his faceplate twisted in a grimace, realising that Prowl truly did have trusted optics and audios everywhere he wished it; almost as if his black and white ex-intended was ghosting his steps, pede step by pede step until he catapulted Jazz into the pit of madness.

Rolling his optics at the Engineer's exaggerated getaway, the CMO retreated back into his office, having successfully, and unknowingly, fended off the Iaconian Crime Lord with his surprise awakening, leaving Jazz to whisper to the dark shadows of the Medical Bay, "He's much worse…"


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers

Please R&R

(Uh... yeah, first ever attempt at the Sticky version of TF Intimacy. Thanks to Ice Fata for giving this a once over, and I really appreiciate all the Reviews that everybody has left on this story thusfar. I hope you all enjoy this next chapter!)

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><p><em><strong>===Prowl=== <strong>_

_Jazz's servos glided over his spread wing panels, fingers teasing into the strong wires and cables of the joints, lips, like molten fire, caressing and teasing the sensors, the slippery slickness of his glossa tempering the fire with cool oral fluids that danced with lightning as the conductive fluid caught on his wild electromagnetic field. _

_He smiled with bliss, systems purring his erotic pleasure as he turned his helm, his own lip-plates colliding with a sensory horn as Jazz nibbled at the side of his neck, seemingly intent on tasting the energon that pulsed at an accelerated rate throughout the Praxian's frame. He flashed his denta behind his swollen lip-plates, grinding the slightly fanged ends against a sensor clutch, making his berth partner whine and shudder at the sudden burst of heated static filtering through his audios as the sensitive audio horn was soothingly lathered with oral fluids like an ointment balm from the following, questing glossa. _

_Jazz's hips bucked against Prowl's aft in a fitful spasm of desire, their black paint invisibly scraping ebony upon obsidian, dual sets of vents huffed with loud whirrs of their cooling fans, the lukewarm atmosphere they churned out, wetly collecting on their passionate frames in tiny rivers of condensation. _

_Prowl's white servos captured Jazz's black, kneading slowly, searching, questing for the sensitive magnet implants just under the metal flesh, earning a panting groan from his lover as he coaxed and guided the magnets to flare on at their lowest setting, sliding the palms, crackling and spitting blue current along his white stomach, teasing pelvic plating and boosting his EM field output, forcing a finger to outline the red triangle upon his hips as he let out a pleasured gasp. _

_The black servos wrenched free of his grip, magnets flashing off as fingers urgently scrabbled at the interface panel that refused to yield under the prodding assault. Jazz actually whined, grinding incessantly against his aft, lubricant from the visored mech's own interface panel forming at the edges of the now loose rectangular piece of metal. Revving his engine, Prowl shuffled forward out of his lover's grip, turning fully with teasing icy blue optics to the desperate flared visor of his berth-mate, whose glossa licked at his parted lip-plates in barely restrained desire, his own olfactory sensors picking up the primal odour of clear lubricant from a valve. _

_He growled playfully, almost lunging at Jazz as he crashed their lip-plates together in a flash of concentrated EM field accompanied by the shriek of grinding metal, the black and white frames falling to the covers of the luxurious berth in entanglement with a shower of sparks. Leg plating resting on either side of his hips, Prowl braced himself on his servos, vents heaving as he looked down on his prize. _

_Jazz smiled up at him, visor lowering in luminosity with a seductive brightness, fingers dancing on his hip plating as he bared his valve and spike, the other half of his interface panel shielding his Plug and Socket from the fluids, the sticky lubricant coating the rim and sides of the activated valve in a messy show of want. Reaching down with purr, he teased the spike's tip with soft pinpricks of his claws, his lover jolting in surprise sensation, hips squirming for attention on the hardware that was actually active and receptive. _

_With a chuckle, he bared his own Interfacing equipment, the spike extending from its sheath, wet with an internal lubricant that helped it slide effortlessly and easily out of his frame. His valve remained offline, dry and inflexible as he shifted forward, gripping his lovers hips as he quested with an innocent touch into the hot silky valve. Jazz purred at the touches he bestowed upon the soft metal walls, coated with lubricant excreting micro-sensor-cilia that were the most sensitive place to touch on a frame. He widened the area with an incessant press into the top and bottom of the valve, the excited noises his lover made prompting his spike to twitch in want as he extracted his fingers and lined up his spike._

_The black and white Praxian flared his wings high and proud as he pushed into the wet valve, Jazz's gasp of satisfaction as he welcomed Prowl into him, their joining searing the moment into their processors. "Prowl." Jazz whispered, as they hung on the verge, the visored mech reaching up and hugging Prowl down to him, the Polyhexian framed mech giving a wince of delight as the spike slid deeper within him, the tip nudging against his sealed Reproduction Chamber, his pedes jerking aimlessly in reflex, balancing on the Praxian's hip plating. "I love you."_

"_Jazz." He hissed incoherently back, beginning to rock gently against his lover, black grinding on black, white on white, pushing and teasing towards the golden daze of overload. They locked lip-plates, their glossa entwining in a slow dance of love and adoration almost akin to worship. "I love you too." _

_**===Prowl=== **_

With a wide sigh of his vents, the black and white Lord of Praxus onlined his optics to the ceiling of his berth chamber. "You're still haunting me, my Jazz." He chuckled, bringing a servo to rest over his faceplate, blocking out the natural light as he allowed one optic to peer through a gap in his fingers up at the carved ceiling, trying to find a noticeable pattern in the wild wash of designs. He rolled into a sitting position, the thermal blanket tangled about his legs, stretching out his doorwings in a slow stretch before they automatically fluttered back into their usual, high and proud position.

"Good orn, brother!" his peace shattering as a bolt of grey and silver bounced into his room and seemed to jitter oddly in front of him.

"And good orn to you too Bluestreak." He greeted, with a lazy drawl, more characteristic of his Middle brother who was nowhere in sight. "Where is Smokescreen? We are to go into the Market after morning energon."

"Oh he went ahead to the Dining Hall." the Youngest of the Trio shrugged, winglets aflutter.

"Very well." Barricade grumbled, his enthusiastic little sibling grabbing his wrist and tugging him down the corridor filled with priceless aritfacts, towards the dining hall as the ever patient house keeper entered his room to clean and make his berth.

After entering the elaborate and ornately decorated Hall, Bluestreak relinquished his wrist plating, so that he could sit elegantly in his seat. The black and white mech tapped a faint rhythmic tune with his claws on the metal as Smokescreen performed various tricks with his cards upon the table separating them.

The Gambler, without his addiction, had been irritable all morning, wings flared high in random bursts of aggression as their little brother bounced around the room, clearly still cheerful from his conquest of the other orn.

_My Siblings_, he smiled softly, the memories of hurt that the erotic recharge flux of himself and his ex had stirred up in his processor, fading into exasperated amusement as Bluestreak stole a card from the stack, yanking one of Smokescreen's doorwings fondly as the mainly blue and red mech ground his denta in frustration. _Mine,_ he thought with tender affection. They never bored him, always up to something that made his Battle Computer tick and his processor's emotional centre pollute his helm with amusement. They were truly his, and that was how it would be until the orn he allowed them to bond with another.

_Always mine._

_**===Smokescreen=Later that Orn=== **_

"Now let's get this little slip up straightened out Swindle." He purred, pinning the Black Market Trader to the wall of the underground shop, his favourite dagger pressed to the cheek plating of the trembling violet opticked mech as he held him securely by the neck cabling. "Barricade isn't here to bail your sorry aft out this time; he's got more important things to do this orn…"

The underground shop's low hanging light, a cheap crystal bulb that cast a sickly hue of blue, swung dizzily on the long power cable connecting it to the ceiling, the light rocking and tipping Smokescreen's outline into monochrome and bright flashes of colour, his shadow coating the deep beige, purple and violet highlighted Trader in a lick of grey every time the light pivoted towards them. "My merchandise, already bought and paid for, I might add, wasn't delivered on time like it usually is…" the Gambler purred, blue optics glinting malevolently as the Trader's vocaliser, pressured by his servo, let out a squeaky hiss of static as the knife drew a soft graze along the onyx faceplate, the cut glowing a soft pink as energon veins near the surface ruptured under the blade, "Why is that, Swindle?"

"The War makes Trading slower, my most cherished friend." Swindle finally managed to croak with a reflexive shudder, servos braced in primal terror against the wall, his plating shaking nervously.

"You do realise I can take my business elsewhere, don't you?" the Gambler rumbled, optics narrowing, the blade tip tapping unfavourably close to the violet optic of his frequent Black Market Trader. "I'm sure a lot of other mechs are willing to take my… considerable amount of credits to get me what I need on time."

"But why go with an untrustworthy stranger, when I've been dealing with your, esteemed Family for Vorns?" Swindle chuckled with a nervous, limited shrug as the doorwinged mech pressed more weight onto his frame. The ex-vents of the Gambler, tainted forever sweet with the smoke of the Special Cygarettes, blowing casually close, burst all sense of socially polite personal space as the blue, red and yellow chevroned mech's faceplate twisted into a dark sneer.

"Grovelling, still doesn't tell me why I don't have my package!"

"Please, Gambler, I'll have it by next orn!" Swindle tried to weasel his way into the Praxian's good graces, that is, if the Gambler had any to begin with…

The door to the tiny underground shop, vibrated with the fist of a knocking Cybertronian, a new voice making the Gambler pause in curiosity, tossing a frustrated look over his shoulder and angled doorwing as it called, muffled through the door.

"Hey, Swindle! I've got some deliveries for you! Stupid Courier Bot left them at my store again! Swindle? You in?"

The terrified ex-vents of the Black Market Trader calmed with a low hiss as Smokescreen released him, motioning with a casual flick of his dagger to answer the door, his intrigue piqued by the visitor, his doorwings tilting in subconscious question. A new business had cropped up and he hadn't noticed? My, he really had been distracted by the run up to and his Big Brother Dearest's little reunion with Jazz.

"I'm coming Sideswipe!" Swindle called back slightly hysterical as he cleared his vocaliser with meaningful static, approaching the door to key in the override code, stilling the swinging light above their helms with a shaking servo, "Just dealing with a valued customer!"

"Yeah, well, can you please send a note or something to the Courier Bot Service? Some of your ordered stuff is heavy!" a black and ruby bot groused, holding several stacked and wrapped items as he liberally strode in and dumped the packages in the corner.

"I do apologise." Swindle chuckled, as the warrior frame shook some strain free of his servo joints, the red paint gleaming in the now still light above their helms. "Sideswipe, I'd like you to meet the Gambler, my most frequent customer, Gambler, this is my new neighbour and business rival, Sideswipe."

"A Kaonite Warrior Frame," Smokescreen commented with a heavy note of interest that made Swindle shiver and hold his glossa, as the unusually blue optics of the new Trader turned on his form, now leaning casually against the wall, his arms crossed, clawed fingers tapping a slow rhythm on his blue arm plating. "How delightfully rare to find one outside of a Gladiator Pit, you must have some good processors in there." He teased lightly, reaching up to tap at the slide of his helm.

"I've got plenty of processing power thank you." The black and red mech retorted, sounding slightly offended, even as Swindle tried to shrink into the limited shadows of the room.

"Really… well… I do believe we should have a game to test that theory." The Gambler smiled, lopsided and taunting, flaring a servo full of his prized playing cards into a violet fan of temptation, Swindle hurriedly clearing his desk in the corner and shoving it under the light of the room in an unspoken command from one of Praxus' Lords.

"Alright." Sideswipe agreed warily, casting an optic about the place as their host mech busied himself away from them with his newly arrived packages. "What's the catch?"

"No catch. Only a win or lose bargain." The Gambler cooed, sweeping his cards into a deck, the ruby webbed pattern ingrained onto the back of the cards, all centred around a golden drop, chiming slightly as he dealt. "I win, I'll give you my details and we can have a little fun at a later orn whenever I choose. If you win, however, you gain a favour. Anything, you want, and if it is in my power to do so, you shall have it... So.. Sideswipe…" he purred sensually at the frowning red and black Trader, that was surely going to trip into the same trap that he had snared Swindle with all those vorns ago, "Do we have a deal?"


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers!

Please R&R

(Sorry for the wait! The length of this chapter explains all! Sort of... anyway, thanks to all who have read, reviewed and/or faved! Thanks to Ice Fata for looking this over, and for being... annoyingly thorough with my spelling :P Enjoy!)

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><p><em><strong>===Iacon= Autobot Base=== <strong>_

_**===Wheeljack===**_

Dithering blindly had never been his strong point, Wheeljack admitted privately as he began to weld and solder some circuitry, his careful movements alerting his guest to his concentration as the blast doors to his lab slid shut and bolted closed. "Finally out of Ratchet's tender clutches are we Jazz?" he asked with a cheerful chirp, not bothering to spare the saboteur a glance, hearing the deliberately quiet pede steps towards his work bench.

"Just some cosmetic work left." The visored mech explained sourly, picking up a sphere like holo-imager from a precarious leaning pile of junk and tossing it between his fingers, stopping mere meters from the dangerous mech. "You do realise that your orns as Head Engineer are numbered don't you? I could go to the Prime right this instant and spill it all."

"No matter how much you whine to Prime, you're never going to reveal your connections to the Underworld of Cybetron." The damaged Praxian snorted with a flick of one of his blade thin doorwings, his optics narrowing in mild annoyance when he accidently soldered a wire into the wrong socket. "Besides the fact that you would be put in the brig for having those connections in the first place, your reasoning is beautifully transparent. You want to bring us to justice, but really… you wouldn't turn on Barricade. He's too deep in your spark. Nearly two hundred vorns of serious dating will do that to a bot."

"Anything I felt for him died when I found out he was the Crime Lord of Praxus." Jazz hissed from behind him, the rhythmic tossing of the holo-imager between his palms alerting the Engineer to the fact that the trained Special Operations agent wouldn't plant a dagger in his back just yet. "If he truly loved me, if he truly cared about _us_, he would have told me before he asked me to bond with him!"

"Would you have stayed even then?" the green and red highlighted mech asked, shutting off his equipment and removing the restricting goggles, turning to gaze blandly at the black and white mech that seemed to brace himself, almost as if he were expecting to be attacked. "Face it Jazz, this isn't about the fact that Prowl is a Crime Lord, it's about your inability to commit."

"Stop turning this back on me!" the Polyhexian snarled, incredibly more confident on his home turf, than he would have been out on the ruined streets of Iacon. "He built our love on lies."

"And yet, he stupidly loves you to the point he's been subconsciously been giving orders to keep you alive, despite your less than successful Bonding Orn." The Head of Autobot Engineering snorted in honest bewilderment, "Don't talk to me about love Jazz, you obviously know nothing of it. Now leave me be and go preach to your little Prime, I'm sure that report holds many little fantasy stories about what a Crime Lord's dungeon looks like."

"You aren't even going to check if I'm wearing recording equipment?" the Third in Command asked incredulously, dropping the holo-imager back into another pile of junk, making the engineer twitch in annoyance as his organised chaos was tampered with. "I could be getting this entire conversation to prove you are a fraud."

"I'm not a fraud, Jazz, by any means, I am a highly respected engineer, inventor and protoform designer in the Towers and Criminal World. Ergo, any equipment you would have had on would have malfunctioned in my Lab." The Crime Lord of Iacon purred darkly, his optics flashing a stroppy crimson in hidden irritation, "Even our Security Director doesn't get things working in here. So, since we have some privacy from the talking walls of our quaint little base, what else do you want to bother me about?"

"The Head of Engineering before you." Jazz growled, hiding his anger, hissing through clenched denta as his fists slackened and tightened in restrained fury. "What happened to her?"

"An unfortunate accident down in the bunker where they keep the supercomputers that have to be kept in the liquid nitrogen to keep cool," Wheeljack chuckled darkly, shrugging his shoulders and throwing up his servos in an amused 'oh well' gesture, "The fool got a little too close to the loose railing and fell in after checking for a fault, she froze before she could even scream for me to help. She was crushed by the computer when the automatic temperature hydraulics kicked in and lowered the mass back into the cooler. It was quite a messy process getting her mangled corpse out, the plating shattered if we gripped it too firmly."

"And let me guess, you watched gleefully from the sidelines as she deactivated." The azure visored mech growled in disgust.

"Surprisingly, no," Wheeljack sighed, clear there was a small part of him that mildly regretted the previous Head of Engineering's loss, his audio fins flashing disappointed beige, "My job was to keep tabs on the Autobots, Jazz, not join the Officer Elite. I did all I could to save Graphite at the time. I was actually very fond of her processing power."

"You… actually regret it?" the Special Operations Leader asked in bewilderment, the Crime Lord before him snorting in distaste at the instant assumption he wouldn't feel remorse, "But… Why?"

"You compare the Mob Hive to Megatron and his Decepticons," Wheeljack commented in amusement as his blast doors beeped with a request to enter, his ruby optics glinting back to blue as he brought their conversation to a cliff-hanger close, "Remember Jazz, not all Crime Lords are as evil as they pretend to be, even we, the criminal underground, look to a better Cybertron, even if it isn't the light and rainbows that your Prime envisions."

The blast doors to the lab snapped open, revealing a very agitated Ratchet, the red white and grey medic pausing in slight surprise when he spotted Jazz standing with his shoulder struts hunched and fists clenched. "Jazz. Aren't you supposed to be talking to Optimus?" the Chief Medical Officer asked in confusion as Wheeljack waved him in with a welcome chirr.

"I'm just going; I was… getting to know our new Engineer." The saboteur muttered, turning on his heel strut and stalking past him, leaning over to whisper darkly in the medic's audio as Wheeljack turned back to his discarded project, "Don't trust him Ratchet, not for a moment."

_**===Kaon= Gladiator Pits=== **_

_**===Sunstreaker=== **_

Awaking alone on his berth was a odd feeling. Instead of clutching a sliver streaked frame, he clasped the folds of his thin, worn, thermal blanket tightly where it had congealed into a random pile, giving the illusion of an arm or waist. Blinking his optics owlishly in bewilderment, Sunstreaker dropped his grip, pushing his frame up on his palms to gaze about the sparse living arrangements that all Gladiators were entitled to.

The pleasure mech was gone, the only evidence he had even existed streaked liberally in grey along his pelvic plating and two sets of claw marks raking along his chest plating. Indignant fury crawled up into his processors, curling around any rational thought like a venomous snake, blinding him to the new obsessive coding that lay dormant in the recesses of his mind.

He swung his pedes to the floor and half leapt from the berth, stalking to the door and ignoring the new patches of rust that were beginning to blotch his wall as he slammed his fist into the keypad. The door opened with a timid squeal of rusty mechanisms and a tired sigh of hydraulics, allowing the annoyed Gladiator into the dank hallway of the Arena's Pits. He cast his blue gaze about the dimly lit hall, his olfactory sensor crinkling in disgust at the flakes of rust and old paint peeling from the walls. The only movement seemed to be from the odd turbo rats scurrying to and fro from the shadows, carrying energon covered chips of plating, even the odd finger if one looked closely enough.

The gold mech strode without fear, deliberately stomping on one of the bolder rodent's tail as it crossed his path, earning a shrill animalistic scream before it scurried away in a torrent of scrabbling claws and chattering clicks. Elevated by the creature's pain, he loped into the Gladiator's public wash racks, tactfully ignoring the much larger Gladiators in the corner where they were bullying a smaller, lesser known Pit Fighter with cruel shoves and brutal remarks. Snorting softly through his vents, Sunstreaker quietly predicted the chances of the poor fragger's chances of going another orn without being jumped and raped by the group. It didn't look good.

A slave femme attended to the evidence of his interfacing, layering the golden yellow paint in the grooves on his chest plates and rubbing off the excess to reveal a flawless finish, moving onto his pelvis plating as another slave mech gently began to rub his back plating with a cleanser dunked cloth, erasing the dust and grime that he had accumulated from the last orn and recharge cycle.

As the mech and femme worked over him, he mulled over the depressing thought that the grey Praxian had simply went looking for a better frag after he had succumbed to the exhaustion of the orns events. Baring his denta in a subconscious scowl, Sunstreaker noted that the Pleasure Bot had simply collapsed right along with him, tucked close to his chest when he had finally relaxed his processor enough to activate his recharge protocols. So where the frag was he?

After getting assurance that he was spotless and clean once more, the Gladiator stalked like a predator from the Wash Rack, casting a venomous glance to a dirt rolling Tank Class mech that nearly clipped him, trying to rush into the humid room to join the group of Gladiators beginning to gather and trade farfetched victories in the large bathing pool.

He barely glanced at the other mecha in the corridor, only looking up at his spotted the pleased looking Pit Master that was counting his credits as a slave femme was being physically separated from her youngling by a posh looking Towers Mech, the femme screaming and making a fuss as the finely polished Noble grabbed the little one by the scruff bar, forcefully herding the youngster away from his Carrier and up the steps.

"Pleasure doing business with you." The Pit Master smiled lecherously at the elegant nobility, turning a brooding optic back to the struggling femme clamped between two of his favourite guards. "You knew this would happen when you let that Gladiator have your valve!" he scolded, not noticing Sunstreaker frowning in the shadows behind him, "Just feel lucky I actually made a profit from your little tryst. That Noble was a passionate fan of your lover before Lockdown ripped out his spark." He almost shouted at the broken femme, raising a servo as if to beat her when she keened for her youngling.

"I think she's learned her lesson." Sunstreaker rumbled blandly stepping from the shadows, impatient for attention from the Pit Master that startled slightly at his unannounced presence.

"I really need to put a bell on you." Snapped the greedy mech; flicking his fingers dismissively at the wailing femme and the guards to get out of his sight, "Despite that loud colour, you still manage to sneak up on me."

"Try shouting softer." Sunstreaker snorted, offering his advice flippantly, taking on a defensive stance when the Pit Master loomed closer, his ex-vents smelling of putrid vintage High Grade energon, prompting Sunstreaker to wrinkle his olfactory sensor. "I need you to tell me where a mech is."

"I own plenty of mechs." The irritating mech nodded, answering him as if he were a sparkling, "Which one?"

"Praxian, grey with red and a streak of silver," the famous gladiator snapped in frustration, tapping his pede impatiently.

"Ahh, him." The Pit Master nodded sagely, subspacing his data-pad and scrolling down the screen, the bright light of the old pad making the purple mech's silver optics squint, "That's Classified."

"How the frag is that classified?" the warrior snarled at his superior, "He's a pleasure bot! What the slag is so Classified about that?"

"Watch your glossa youngling, before I yank it out!" the hulking mech screeched back, his figurative feathers truly ruffled that the yellow mech was challenging him so publicly, Sunstreaker usually pushed his buttons when the two were in the privacy of his office after the gold mech had caused a little mayhem. "Now go get your energon before I decide to put you in a match with Lockdown!"

Growling like a feral animal, Sunstreaker backed off, his ex-vents harsh with his rage, pushing past the Pit Master towards the Mess Hall, muttering curses and insults to any that passed to close to his immaculate finish.

He stormed into the Rec-Room, startling a few minibots into dispersing before he whacked one over the helm with his clenched fists. Several new trainees saw him coming, scattering from the energon dispenser as it belched out their standard ration into the sorry looking metal cubes that were stacked in a precarious pile that looked like it was about to topple at the slightest nudge, beside the old rusty machine. Frowning, he swiped the cube, turning to survey the already rowdy room before a familiar purple femme waved him over.

"I take it you're not having a good orn." His usual sparring partner teased as he dumped his energon onto the table with a clang of metal, his thick plated, golden frame slumping heavily onto the seat, with a fury driven growl as she tried to hijack his cube.

"Frag off, Nightbird."

"Definitely not having a good orn." She grinned brightly, wrenching her servo back in mild surprise when the mech dared to take a swipe at her. "What's up Sunshine?"

"Don't call me that." He hissed at the cheerful femme.

"Oh, I get it, you're fragged off. Who is it this time? Is he in the Medical Bay already?" the ninja bot asked excitedly, almost bouncing in her seat with excitement.

"It's not a Gladiator, it was a pleasure bot," the brightly coloured mech glowered broodingly into his gritty tasting energon, before tracing a line of rust on the table's surface that was stained with the dried patches of mech-blood and spilled energon. "I came to after the recharge cycle and the fragger was gone!" the exotic helm fins flashing polished gold as he suddenly gestured erratically in her direction, "What kind of pleasure mech just ups and leaves? And I'm not just talking about my berth; it's like he's disappeared off the face of the fragging planet!"

"Calm down Goldie!" Sneered one of the other veterans of the Pits, swirling his lumpy, watered down Tank Grade energon with his remaining servo as a squeaky looking medic tended to the stump of the other from across the room after the Front Line Class gladiator's voice had risen over the course of his rant. "You'd think that you were actually attached to the whore after only one good frag!"

"Call me that again and I'll rip your slagging throat cabling out!" Sunstreaker snarled back, optics glinting malicious bluebell, the hidden coding in the back of his processors firing on with a now instinctive defence on behalf of Bluestreak's berthing habits. "And that mech was not a whore!"

"Whatever you say." The snickering elder mech snorted, tossing back the last of his energon with a satisfied gleam of his optics, leaving Sunstreaker to spit figurative bolts over the veteran's jabs.

"He's a dead mech walking." Another rookie group muttered from another table, rolling their optics at the elder mech as he turned back to chatting up the medic currently repairing him.

"Listen Sunstreaker." Nightbird sighed, reaching over the table to pat, almost patronizingly on the frustrated mech's arm plating, "This mech you're so worked up over was clearly sold on."

"He can't have been." The gladiator sulked, covering his obvious distaste with a quick swig of his energon, the graceful mech's faceplate twisting at the taste, slamming the energon back to the table, the liquid sloshing loudly. "I would have seen him going around. Last Recharge Cycle was the first time I had even seen him. He must have been new. The Pit Master was less than helpful, like he usually is, Classified Information my aft."

Frowning, she hummed in puzzlement, tilting her helm, "Maybe you twin could help you, last I heard, he was good at tracking bots and not so legal items down."

"Sideswipe moved to Praxus." Sunstreaker snapped with a clipped, icy cadence. "Apparently Kaon's been getting some bad press with the War going on. Megatron has his HQ somewhere around here, so his business had been going down the drain. Praxus is neutral until they make up their minds about which side they are joining, so he hightailed it there, leaving me to rot here."

"You can't possibly expect me to believe that you only joined the Pits because your brother wanted to move to Praxus." She snickered from behind her raised energon cube. "knowing you Front Liner builds, I expect pride had something to do with it too."

"Sideswipe said, and I quote from his rant, 'You are an artist, you wouldn't last five breems in a fight if the Decepticons actually made a move to secure Kaon.' I joined the Arena to prove him wrong," Sunstreaker admitted, his shoulder plating flattening closer to his protoform in apparent embarrassment at his admission. "Let's just say we weren't on talking terms until I dialled his Comm. Number a vorn later and apologised for punching him."

The armoured femme giggled, shaking her helm at the silliness of the mech before her, "If the pleasure bot isn't here, just go get him, if he was as good as you are implying, he's worth chasing!"

"Thanks." He sighed relieved that somebody seemed to understand his dilemma, draining his cube and rising from the table to return to his sulking somewhere less private where he might call his brother for a favour, "I'll see you for sparring later?"

"Wouldn't miss it, hon!" she called, drawing shrill suggestive whistles from the room as the golden mech strode from the room with an air of superiority, giving the Cybertronian equivalent of the middle finger to the Rec-room as he went.

Sighing, the femme dialled a number on her Communication Link, wincing at the amount of static that laced the line, despite the reassurance it would work over the long distance, "He'll be coming your way by the next orn."

"Deal is a deal I suppose." Sighed a childish voice from the other end, the dull throb of music in the background, "Thank you for your services Nightbird, as per our agreement, your Gladiator Contract has been annulled."

"Pleasure doing business with you, Silverstreak." She smiled as the link went dead, humming as she drained her energon cube with a smug smile.

_**===Praxus= The Club=== **_

_**===Prowl=== **_

"You let him escape?"

"An unfortunate event, but one that has little drawbacks in the grand scheme of things," Prowl soothed calmly with a barren monotone as the gun metal grey transformer stalked before him, his fusion cannon humming with heat and purple energy. "Energon?" he offered, gesturing with the curved glass decanter as he poured himself a cube of highly refined Mid Grade energon, setting down the beautiful creation on the table before them.

He let out a slow, cold smile, lazily taking a sip of his energon as Megatron, the War Lord of Kaon, swept his servo at the table, sending the expensive accessories across the room to shatter along the far wall where it splattered in a messy mockery of a battlefield kill with a loud crash. "Are all you Praxians this incompetent that you have to try and win me over by waving your riches in my faceplate?"

Silverstreak, who had been standing behind his brother's chair, ever watchful for threats, hissed lowly, wings rising fractionally at the insult before his brother soothed him with a casual flick of dismissal from his relaxed doorwings. Barricade softly sighed, rising his cube of energon to examine the fine glowing swirls that danced through the mixture at optic level, ignoring the furious Leader of the Decepticons that paced before him. "You worry over nothing, Megatron, Jazz is no threat."

"That saboteur has taken out many of my operatives and even two of my bases single-servoed!" the gunformer snapped, his wire thin patience evaporating like a petrol coated fuse before the immoveable black and white Praxian currently ignoring him in favour of inspecting his energon of all things. "Tell me, _Barricade_, why the frag couldn't you have done away with him?"

"As I clearly stated, it was an unfortunate underestimation of my old friend that led to his untimely escape." Prowl sighed with a frozen mockery of regret, gesturing to Silverstreak who had the decency to look a little sheepish, "My brother's just overlooked a minor detail, that's all."

"Ah yes, where is the Gambler?" Megatron asked, temper clipping his words into rough rumbles of threat. "He was the one responsible for the Autobot, he should be taking the punishment." He smiled cruelly, his fusion cannon humming higher as more energy was diverted to the weapon.

In a flash, Barricade had leapt from his seat, energon cube crashing to the floor, shattering into a million shards, each splattered with the contents of the Crime Lord's drink as he drew his energon sword from his subspace and placed the heated tip at the War Lord's throat cabling. "You will not touch my brothers." Barricade hissed, optics of molten ice swirling a crackling ivory, his doorwings high and stiff as the Decepticon stared at him in shock, his wide ruby optics clashing with wonder and a rage that burned eternally like the fires of the Pit. "If you dare lay a servo on either of them without my permission, Optimus Prime will be the least of your worries!"

"You are bold." Megatron sneered, the smell of slightly singed cabling drifting lazily to his olfactory sensors, "To point a sword at the one who could bomb your city at the wave of a servo."

"While you are still in the middle of recruiting?" Barricade smiled; the devil hiding in a mortal frame, "My, my, how easy would it be to dismantle those toy soldiers you call Decepticons without you bellowing out orders, I wonder?"

"A stalemate then." The grey mech conceded, holding his servos up in amused surrender, just now taking notice of the sniper dot trained between his optics, emanating from the slightly anxious looking Silverstreak. Barricade relaxed, subspacing his sword, turning his back on him boldly, returning to his previous unruffled state in his plush chair, snapping his claws to call off his youngest brother's marker. "When will you have a decision?"

"I have to talk it over with the Hive first," Barricade deduced for him, leaning an elbow on the arm rest and placing his cheek plating on his knuckles as his other servo kneaded the opposite arm rest creating small metal shavings with his claws that landed on the puddle of energon and glass that the Praxian Lord had forgotten in the sudden excitement. "Then, afterwards, I will pressure the Praxian Council into putting out a formal statement of allegiance."

"And your allegiance will be to my faction?" Megatron growled, optics flashing with a hidden warning.

"You haven't impressed me much." Prowl replied lowly, his metal brow creasing as he allowed his faceplate to scowl when Megaton's growl became a full snarl, "But you can possibly redeem yourself yet. Perhaps we can come to an agreement about a certain Autobot Jazz?"

"Oh?" the ex-gladiator asked, curiosity piqued, "And what agreement would that be?"

"I want you to keep him alive for me, as slippery as he is, I would like to… possess him when all is said and done." Barricade demanded, "You grant me this Megatron, Praxus and the Crime Lords of the Mob Hive will all be yours to use as you see fit, once I have the usurpers and do-gooders weeded out."

"Very well, Praxian," Megaton chuckled darkly, rolling his shoulders as he turned to exit via the balcony. "You have three orns to give me your decision, or else this city is going to be levelled." The larger mech sneered taking to the sky as the two Praxians gazed disapprovingly at him.

"But stupid Barricade, you have revealed your weakness." He laughed as he took off, turning to sneer down at the glowering black and white mech, "Jazz will herald your fall, Barricade. And when the time comes, not even the great Optimus Prime will be able to save you…"

Prowl rumbled lowly as Megatron became a dark speck on the horizon, his doorwings flaring up into a 'V' as he clasped his servos behind his back, simmering in silent fury, ignoring a servant femme that had been summoned to clear up the mess the arguing had caused, turning a blazing gaze to a stony faced Bluestreak, "Get me Dai Atlas. It's time he and I had a little reunion."


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers!

Please R&R!

(Sorry it took so long! I tweaked and re-tweaked this chapter for ages before I was happy with it. Thanks to Ice-Fata for looking this over! Enjoy!)

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><p><em><strong>===Optimus Prime=== <strong>_

"It is imperative that we gain the support from the Praxians." Jumpstart sighed with a resigned fidget, sweeping his palm across the Tactics City holograph to a rotating image of Cybertron before the Prime and highlighting various sections. "Adding the support of the Praxian Enforcers and Private Military to the current Decepticon ranks, it will induce a severe disadvantage to us. Praxus is the buffer between Iacon and the shortest, direct route from Kaon. By allowing neither of the factions access to airspace or grounds, we are forced to use the longer, more fuel consuming routes to any battlefield. It is no surprise that Megatron is trying to woo the Praxus Council to see his way of thinking."

"You forget that the Praxus Council isn't actually in control of the City." Jazz commented sourly, swigging a cube of Mid-Grade energon in the corner as if he were in a common bar and not in the presence of the Prime himself. "Megatron has been bargaining with Barricade, the Praxus Crime Lord. Odds are, the Praxus Council has no idea until Barricade tells them of the deals."

"Is it possible to gain a meeting with Barricade through the Council?" Jumpstart pondered, his azure optics never wavering from the hologram with increasing worry.

"It would be the quickest way to at least try and gain his favour." Optimus nodded thoughtfully, tapping his fingers in a flowing rhythm upon his Commander's chair. The deep, knowledgeable optics that held the wisdom of Primes past turning to the saboteur tucked in his faithful shadows, "We also need to know how much progress Megatron has made in gaining Praxus as his ally. Are you ready for your assignment Jazz?"

"Ratchet cleared me a few joors ago. I just have to get a repaint after this mission." The Third in Command of the Autobot Army nodded firmly, visor flaring as Jazz's easy going personality slipped underneath the deadly saboteur he was trained to be, the new welds that graced his shoulder plating and face making his appearance savage and wild. "I'm ready to move my team at your order Prime."

"Good. You may go, the orders will be transferred by inscription code four when you are at checkpoint one." The young Prime rumbled, as Jazz stalked from the room giving a quick subservient nod to the larger mech.

"Sir. Is it wise to allow Jazz out in the field after his traumatic experience?" Jumpstart asked with a shifty glance of his optics. "He may have thought he was covering it well, but we all saw how shaken he was."

"I have upmost confidence in my Officers, Jumpstart." Optimus said with a grave note of conviction, rising from his chair, "However, I am also a mech of caution, Mirage will be radioing Ratchet with updates every few joors to make sure Jazz doesn't have any lasting problems."

"Sir, if I may ruin the moment?" Jumpstart asked with a timid smile, "May I suggest employing a psychologist the next time we review the budget?"

Chuckling, Optimus Prime shook his helm in amusement as he made his way towards the door, "You and I both know Jazz would have to be dragged kicking and screaming down the corridor if we did hire one, besides, Psychologists are unfortunately rare nowadays…"

_**===Sideswipe===**_

He couldn't help but think that The Gambler was toying with him, the mostly blue Praxian leaning back in his chair, his doorwings drooping lazily, a cygarette dangling from between his denta as the bright azure optics half shuttered in amused pleasure at his fidgeting, he could almost taste the impure intentions that wafted through the air like a strong perfume.

Swindle, almost cringing in the corner, trying to become part of the silver wall, seemed to be having a mild panic attack, the noisy concert his hyperventilating vents were performing piercing the heavy blanket of weary dislike. The smoky grey fog drifting from the Gambler's habit to curl in lethargic circles around the light like a witch's brew stirring in the cauldron, polluting the air with an arid dry taint.

"So tell me about yourself Sideswipe," The Gambler purred, glossa rolling his designation with a sultry deep rumble that made his ruby plating shudder at the low harmonics; the crafty ruler of gambling languidly withdrawing a violet card from his fan and slotting it with a practiced grace on the table before withdrawing the top thin slab of clouded crystal from the central pile.

"Nothing much to tell." He shrugged, pushing down his edginess with a small but powerful ripple of his armour, taking the opportunity to roll his shoulder joints in their sockets, "Frontline class Warrior Frame turned Market Dealer. Being this armoured makes it easy to intimidate some of the more… disagreeable customers."

"I'd imagine." The Praxian nodded in a somewhat sympathetic manner, his doorwings, branded with a bright pearly white thirty eight of unknown purpose flexing in a stretch. "I envy you. I normally have to assert my power in a less… desirable fashion. Incredibly messy. I much prefer this method." He smiled, making a more prominent fan with his cards and batting them to punctuate his words with a visual aid. The trail of smoke from the cygarette billowing back to dance across the polished silver faceplate and curl around the dazzling gold of the chevron.

"So you know how to take care of yourself then." The frontline class warrior frame asked slowly, testing the waters, tilting his helm as if in curious innocence, internally frowning at the low purr, his distrust of this Praxian rocketing through the roof.

"You know I can." The Gambler smiled back, a content euphoria dancing in his lazy gaze, "But by all means, try and get out of this using force, it has been a while since I've sparred with a warrior class mecha that has no clue of what I can do."

"You play games, Gambler." Sideswipe said darkly, his movements to place his cards, quick and efficient betraying his desire to leave the underground shop as soon as he could, with or without a favour owed. "I've been kept up to date with all that goes on in Praxus."

"Oh?" the Gambler chuckled the cygarette in his oral cavity shuddering and bouncing with his laughter, the azure optics gliding towards Swindle, who shrunk under his gaze, "Swindle, did you tell Sideswipe about what goes on in the City?"

"Leave him out of this." The ruby mech quickly intervened as Swindle's plating rattled in obvious apprehension, the poor mech sliding along the silver wall to half curl over in the corner beside a stack of crates. "He's doing nothing wrong."

"On the contrary my naive mech, Swindle and I share one or two secrets…" The Gambler growled, his doorwings rising from their flop into an alert warning, the blue armoured mech withdrawing his habit from between his denta, bracing it between two fingers as he tapped at the table with his claws, a billow of discard smoke flushing from his olfactory sensor and mouth, "I'm just making sure my interests are secure."

"I would never…" Swindle began, bracing himself against the wall as if wishing it would reveal a hidden door he could slip through to escape the expectant, dark gaze that the Gambler examined him with, as if he were a cyber-butterfly pinned with a needle for study.

"Make sure it doesn't pet." The Gambler smirked turning back to his cards, returning the cygarette to his mouth with a careless flicker of his wrist. "So… Sideswipe. Do you win or lose I wonder?" he asked, his demeanour smug and prideful, slapping the crystal card fan down and spreading the heirloom across the table in a neat practiced line, revealing half a perfect suite.

The red and black armoured mech leaned forward in seat, his own flare of cards held close, the blue optics tracing the Gambling Lord as he relaxed back into his chair, his doorwings fluttering in a silent laugh, checking his cybertanium lined claws with a denta flashing smile, almost as if he had already won. "Half the Senator Suite." He acknowledged with a frown, bringing up his own cards as he leant back, his opponents optics darkening in a heady delight. "It appears you've lost Gambler."

His words triggered a loud hiss from the mostly blue Praxian, claws flashing forward to rake the table with a loud shriek of yielding metal, "Not possible," the gaming mech snapped, doorwings flared wide and high, "I never lose."

"It seems you just did." Sideswipe said smiling at the others angry disbelief, throwing down his cards in their messy fan, providing his opponent with evidence of his claim where a perfect Prime suite flashed under the hazy lighting of the light that dangled above them, clouded with smoke. "It seems you owe me a favour, Gambler."

Indigo optics were narrowed in his direction, the Praxian standing from his chair with a stiff angry aura, his seat scraping along the floor before the back metal legs caught a groove in the floor and toppled backwards with a clatter. Swindle, forgotten in the moment, squeaked in surprised horror as the Gambler leaned forward with a deliberate swiftness so that he loomed over the table and his precious cards, the light from his optics brightening to an almost ivory white in shock as he gazed upon the truth that Sideswipe had offered him.

"It seems I do." The Gambler finally muttered, as if he didn't quite have all of his wits, expertly gathering his cards back into a deck and almost throwing them into his subspace with disgust. The Middle Brother of the Enforcer family growled in blind frustrated confusion, stalking around the table and running his claws over an offended Sideswipe's chest plates with a curiously cocky, sultry air, leaning down to whisper delicately in the disturbed red front-liner's audio. "Don't wait too long to cash in that favour handsome. I might get impatient and come looking for you, we should do this again sometime…"

With that the Praxian sashayed towards the exit, palming the door open as he turned to the shaking Swindle watching the scene like a cyber-deer in the headlights, "Give him my communication frequency, Swindle. I expect all deliveries to be precise the next time I order. Do I make myself clear?"

"Of course, sir." Swindle nodded as if he had a violent twitch in his neck cabling, "As an apology, the next time you order shall be free of charge."

"Very good." The Gambler nodded, and vanished up the stairs into the bustling street above.

_**===Ironhide=== **_

"And then the glitch-mouse storms out declaring that he's fine!" the medic continued to rant, waving his energon cube about erratically, defying the laws of gravity by not spilling a single drop of the fluorescent liquid as he gestured violently, "I swear I'm going to nail him to the floor when I see the fragger in my Medbay again!"

"Easy Ratchet." He snorted, rolling his optics at the furious Chief Medical Officer as he tweaked with his arm cannons, "Jazz is being a typical Special Operations mech, he needs to be dying before he'll willingly trek anywhere near your domain."

"At least Wheeljack comes to me when he's bleeding out." The white, red and grey mech sulked turning to the Rec-Room and snapping at the other relaxing mechs, "See? I have at least one model patient!"

Snickering at the cringing crowd, Ironhide shook his helm in amusement, "Speaking of Wheeljack, you've been hanging around him more often since he became Head of Engineering. Got yourself a crush have you, Ratchet?"

"Shut up you old fool." The mech sniffed gulping at his energon with a violent vigour, slamming the cube down on the table between them as if he were a judge with a gravel, condemning a mech to the cells, "He just listens better than any of you lot when I'm ranting."

"Not surprised, he's got his helm stuck in an experiment half the time when I go see him." The Weapons Master shrugged, "He barely responds. I thought the purpose of your rants was to get a rise out of a potential verbal sparring partner."

"I know but Wheeljack's different, I've known him for ages," Ratchet moped with a scowl, his armour fluffing slightly in subconscious defence at the rust red mech's prodding, averting his optics slyly before muttering sourly, "Not that he remembers me…"

"Whatever you say Ratch." He smiled with a chuckle, jumping slightly when a thunderous rumble of ground shaking proportions thundered through the base. "Looks like 'Jackie found the explosive properties of rubber. Impressive. Off you trot Ratchet; your regular might need help shuffling to the Medical Bay."

"Shut up, Fragger." The short tempered medic growled, flicking his empty energon cube at his helm, which bounced off the Weapon Specialist's arm as the red mech raised it to fend off Ratchet's harmless attack. "I'll go see what the damage is this time. You go tell Hoist and Grapple that we'll need new blast doors for his lab again."

"Yes, sir, right away sir. I respectfully request not to get a wrench to the helm for this statement sir!" Ironhide saluted playfully, much to Ratchet's visible annoyance as the Chief Medical Officer stomped from the room.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers!

Please R&R!

(Anybody know a good TF artist so I can commission a cover for Wild Ones? I'm so darn proud of this fic it is insane.

Sub-plots will all tie in eventually, so I apologise if anybody is getting frustrated with the lack of Prowl/Jazz action. That will be rectified soon.

Finally, thanks to Ice Fata for the once over and to all of you readers that are enjoying this verse! Enjoy!)

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><p><em><strong>===Wheeljack=== <strong>_

The explosion had definitely broken something.

Cursing colourfully, he tried flexing his fingers, realising that was the area that had been 'broken' as it were, in fact, it felt as if he didn't have any fingers at all now.

Onlining his optics to the smoke and charred debris scattered around his frame where he was sprawled like a discarded rag doll, he braced himself on his good servo as he heaved himself up into a sitting position, wincing when he felt something tear behind his stomach armour, a grizzly trail of leaking energon dripping from behind the armoured plates.

He scowled behind his mask at his work bench, another slew of curses escaping his vocaliser when he saw the state of it, the beautiful sturdy metal now gnarled and twisted like some grotesque piece of art, splattered with his energon that was now liberally running from the fingerless stump that he once called his right servo. "Explosion proof my aft." He grumbled, shaking his helm to rid himself of the fuzzy fog that the persisted to confuse his equilibrium, making a mental note to throttle Perceptor next time he saw his Second in Command back at his underground lab base, hidden in the bowels of Iacon.

"Wheeljack, you stupid aft!" a voice snarled viciously over the ringing in his audios that the failed experiment had caused, "You shooed me out of here not ten breems ago and you go and blow yourself to smithereens!"

"Hi, Ratchet," he sulked to himself, helm fins flashing their rebooting sequence, the colour filters flashing in a wild lightshow that almost blinded the Autobot medic as he clambered over a pile of now useless, half melted experiments that had been caught in the blast. "I think my fingers are welded to that lovely slab of art that used to be my desk."

"You're lucky I keep spare parts." his white, red and grey medic snorted, stumbling when his foot trod on a sturdy round gadget, "Frag it all! Don't you know the purpose of cupboards?!" the irate mech growled.

"You love me really." He teased, wiggling the fingers of his surviving servo in a coy flirting air.

"I beg to differ." Ratchet sniffed with superiority, examining the fingers melted to the remains of his desk, turning to the downed Engineer with a frown as Wheeljack found it a tad harder to focus on the medic in front of him. "Wheeljack?"

"I think I might need help getting to the Medical Bay this time Ratchet." The infiltrator muttered, jerking in mild surprise when Ratchet tugged him to his pedes with a firm guiding pull, staying the Engineer's newborn like wobble with a quick grab that sent Wheeljack's world spinning for a moment.

"Why didn't you say so in the first place you glitch?" the Chief Medical Officer growled, making the Crime Lord smile under the privacy of his slightly charred blast mask as he felt the nervous flutter of worry rattle through Ratchet's plating where mech was supporting him. "I take it you can stumble in the general direction of my domain with my support?" he asked with a small frown.

"Ratch, you're talking to the mech that managed to hop down the hallway with a leg blown off a decaorn ago." Wheeljack giggled with an almost insane glee, optics flashing claret, his carefully crafted illusion of a common as rust engineer slipping as the energon loss from the burst veins in his servo and chassis threw his thought processes out of whack. "Besides, this is nothing compared to losing my doorwings, you know. They used to be so beautiful… but… everything for science I suppose."

"You had doorwings?" Ratchet parroted with a knowing tone, trying to keep the blathering mech online as he ushered the engineer towards his Medical Bay, leaving a trail of energon behind them. "And stay online you glitch, I can't carry you. For being smaller than me, you carry some serious weight around, probably thanks to all those hidden frame upgrades of yours."

"Yep, blew them off. The only thing they could save was the support blades." The mostly white and grey Crime Lord of Iacon continued, emphasising his point by flicking the silver blade structures. "Shame you weren't the medic back then, you probably would have managed to save them."

Ratchet made a soft snort of disbelief as they came across Ironhide returning from his errand, Wheeljack's optics instantly flashing back to their aquamarine colour and crinkled at the edges to show he was smiling behind his soot covered mask, the engineer's frame tensing with a low grind of stressed gears and joints.

"You're still alive I see." Ironhide laughed with a powerful boom of amusement, thumping the slightly younger mech on the shoulder with obvious friendly affection making the inventor wince in mild pain.

"Knock it off you slagger." Ratchet grumbled, as he swore he heard something else creak in warning under Wheeljack's plating. "He's already coming apart; don't accelerate the process until we're in the Med Bay at least."

"Yeah, look at that." Wheeljack nodded, his helm fins flashing blue in amusement, pointing at the slick trail of mech-blood that followed their trail from the debris of the Lab, Ratchet growling as he detected an ounce of pride in the voice, "All my doing!"

"I see that." Ironhide snorted, grabbing Wheeljack's other arm to help support the slightly delusional mech, sighing when he spotted the grizzly fingerless stump the engineer sported and was currently passing off as his servo. "Come on, let's get you to the Med Bay, 'Jack, you crazy old fragger."

"I'm old?!" the Engineer parroted with clear offence as the duo limped him into the Medical Bay. "You're only as old as you feel, Ironhide! And I feel like a sprightly young mech!"

The rust red mech snickered as they set the mostly white inventor down on the berth, Ratchet immediately fluttering around his monitors and medical contraptions before wandering off to collect his micro surgery tools so that he could re-attach energon lines, wires and fingers. "Sure you are. That is precisely why I heard your joints creaking last orn."

The Engineer gave the Weapons Specialist a sour look, his optics shuttering with a sharp snap and staying narrow as they reopened, veins of scarlet writhing under the metal lids.

"If you two are quite finished?" Ratchet said with a long suffering grumble, shouldering Ironhide aside, the large mech grunting playfully as the rib vents were poked roughly. "I have a patient that needs tending to."

"Alright, alright." The red mech snickered waving his servos in surrender, giving Wheeljack a grin, "I'll see you later 'Jack, I'll tell Optimus that you might not make it on time for your patrol shift."

"Oh I'll make it." The inventor smiled darkly behind his blast mask, his helm fins flushing orange with random rivers of scarlet, internally planning his next meeting with his subordinates in the dark gutters of Iacon as Ratchet clamped the energon lines and forced a cube of the fluorescent pink liquid into his free servo to replace the energy he had lost. "Got to do my duty and all that."

"_If_ I get your fingers attached in the next few breems," Ratchet barked with a scowl, tossing the spare wrench from his subspace with a careless flick in the retreating Ironhide's direction, smiling grimly when the rust red mech yelped, announcing a direct hit as the doors slid closed, "If not, I'll have to replace the entire servo."

"Aww, see? You do care!" Wheeljack giggled gleefully snapping back his blast mask to chug down the energon, helm fins brightening as the filter returned to the 'usual' happy blue the engineer usually sported, internally cursing himself for the slip up with his optic colour filters in the corridor in front of the medic as his processors realigned themselves. "But you know, the experiment probably wouldn't have blown up if I hadn't tried to mix it with that nitro-glycerine and potassium shavings…

Raising an optic ridge, his lip plates pulling down in an unimpressed frown, Ratchet threateningly fired on the micro welder, even as he reached for a cuboid object he had set on the berth earlier, while the inventor prattled on, "Do you want a Sensor Block for the pain or not?"

"Shutting up."

_**===Badlands= Citadel of the Knight's of Light===**_

_**===Dai Atlas===**_

Flowing through the forms of a short sword kata, so focused on his task, he didn't even hear the intruder into the training circle until their ex-vents brushed across his wings.

Growling, he pivoted with a wide sweep of his blade, grunting in surprise as he felt his legs being swept out from under him by a familiar black blur splashed with gold. "Axe!" he vocalised in frustration as he hit the ground on his side, kicking up a cloud of fine metal grains that covered the pitch as the atmosphere was forced from his vents by the same ebony armoured being that pounced on him, straddling his hips and slamming the sturdy Cybertanium pole of a long handled, customised axe into the top of his chest, firmly pinning him beneath the grinning ground based warrior.

"I win." The gold detailed mech laughed, the Triple Changer under him scowling up with a feral light in the magma coloured optics. The crystal blue optics of the black mech shimmered in good spirits, leaning down so that they were almost brushing olfactory sensors, "So. What's my prize?"

"Get off Axe." The golden horned Triple Changer snapped, managing to grab Axe's knee armour in his white servos, clamping tight, making the ebony mech wince as the war armour let out a low groan under the almost violent pressure Dai Atlas exerted. "I'm in no mood."

"You're never in 'the mood' anymore." The Master Knight sighed despairingly, rolling his optics as he folded away his battle axe and stowed it on his back next to a gleaming silver sword, the vibrant azure gem planted in the hilt seeming to glow from within. "Your sparkling is going to think you're just a boring old stiff, if you keep this mood swing going any longer." Axe declared, jabbing the royal blue, much bigger mech in the chest plates roughly, not bothering to rise from where he straddled the infamous Leader of the Circle, his knee joints still anchored in the Triple Changer's grasp grinding into the metal sand below them as he shifted his weight.

"Wing knows I care." Dai Atlas said, almost reproachfully, as Axe offered him an uncaring shrug, folding his arms tightly across obsidian chest plates.

"A sparkling needs his Sire to actually interact with him, instead of just standing looking on with a bizarre weariness. He's not a bomb, Atlas, he's a tiny sparkling who wants to play with his Creator." Axe replied, optics narrowing, a barely hidden note of contempt slipping through.

"If you are here, where is Wing?" Dai Atlas growled, slightly clawed fingers digging into Axe's knee wiring before he released his bothersome second in command. The ebony mech leapt to his pedes with a hiss of surprise, rubbing at the warped armour that shielded the now sore wiring beneath.

"With Claret, the sparkling sitter I told you about." Axe grumbled, hobbling to the spectator's bench at the side of the pitch so that he could examine the damage the golden tri-horned mech had dished out, "I came to knock some sense into you, I can see know that was a waste of time."

"Axe, here, let me." Dai Atlas sighed, rubbing despairingly at his optics as Axe verbally swore at him when he approached, the black mech trying to pry some armour back into place from where it had trapped some wiring. He dropped to his own knees, white fingers running gently over the minimal damage that they had created in a fit of anger.

Scowling openly at his mate, Axe leaned back against the support pillar, unimpressed as the powerful Leader of the Circle of Light, straightened out the dented metal, the sharp golden horns nearly skewering him in the faceplate when Dai Atlas leaned forward to peer in the gap between the top of the knee armour protrusion and the thigh armour to check if the wiring was seriously damaged. "I don't know why you didn't just say you didn't want a sparkling." Axe huffed finally, flicking at the shining golden horns on his mate's helm.

"But you've always wanted one." Dai Atlas sighed, fine grains of metal sand flushing from his vents in a silver cloud, "I couldn't deny you that, not when it made you so happy to learn that you were carrying."

"I could have lived with it, if you had said," Axe grumbled, "I teach the youngling acolytes for a reason you know."

"I thought that was just because you lost a bet." Dai Atlas commented dryly, trying to make amends with his mate.

"I did, they just didn't know I have a soft spot for teaching younglings." The black mech smiled proudly, thumping his chest plate armour in a show of truth. The soft grin faded as Dai Atlas rose, bracing himself on his knee with his servo as he pushed up. "If I get Wing, you'll stay and play with him? Just a breem, that's all I'm asking, you may even end up liking it."

The red optics dimmed softly, looking down into an ocean of bright aqua, as his white servo became encased in the stark black of his mate's fingers. "Alright Axe, a breem." He warned as he his mate lunged up and nuzzled his neck cabling, before almost bouncing out of the room with a gleeful smile.

_**===Circle of Light Citadel===**_

_**===Bluestreak===**_

He arrived at the front gates to the Citadel like a wraith, slipping in quietly with a patrol group as the distracted guards chatted to their returning friends, their loud jubilance drawing all optics and audios from his silver form as it disappeared into one of the alleyways.

He transformed with a low groan of squeaking gears, cracking his knuckle joints with soft metallic snaps as he removed his sniper rifle from his subspace and screwed on the silencer attachment. Smiling he activated his servo and pede magnets, placing a palm on the wall of the grand building and letting out a giggle when he felt the charge ripple through his metal flesh. Silverstreak flared the charge higher, a high pitched whine tapering off into the shadows as he began to climb.

According to the blue prints that Barricade had given him, Dai Atlas' living quarters were on the top level and the office he was about to try and break into also resided on the same floor. The scheme seemed a little to grand just to drop off a message.

He shimmied up the last two floors, the wind current, violent and howling like a dying cyber-wolf; whipping at his sensitive doorwings clamped tightly to his back strut as the megnets in his servos temporarily failed him, sending him down half a floor before they decided to power on again.

The Enforcer Family Assassin growled darkly as he reached his desired floor, clamping one of his servo's tightly onto the window sill as he withdrew his heated laser, severing the locks and alarms that ran around and across the window with a quick efficiency.

Tossing the laser back into his subspace, he forced open the window into the living area with the loud boom of cracking glass. He peered into the darkness of the room, optics narrowing as he cursed his night vision optics lenses for deciding to shatter on the way here. The grey Praxian slid into the darkness, stumbling slightly when something caught the tip of his pede, sending him careering straight into the light switch pad with a loud thud as his faceplates met the wall, the white light flooding the room.

He groaned in disorientation, jumping to attention and whirling with his sniper rifle humming in readiness to aim at what appeared to be a sparkling cot tucked in the corner as the sound of a tired warble split the silence after his unprofessional entrance. "Who in Primus' name are you?" he asked under his breath, pointing the barrel of his rifle to the ceiling , stalking forward to look down with a disapproving gaze on the tiny sparkling that blearily shuttered its large golden optics at him, cooing as it tracked the flash of the silver splash of paint on his chest.

"Wing?" a soft femme's voice called from beyond the door as he reached into the crib, grabbing the sparkling by the scruff bar that let out a loud shrill squeak of defiance at being disturbed so roughly, tiny wings flaring out to show his displeasure. The door cycled open as Bluestreak froze, holding the child tightly that had begun to whimper, small servos making grabbing motions for the scarlet femme that had immediately drawn a blade at the sight of the Praxian. "Put him down!" she snarled, advancing threateningly when Bluestreak skipped back a few steps so that he was beside the window again.

"Gladly," he shrugged, extending his servo with the sparkling in it so that it was dangling fifty floors up, exposed to the winds outside, the tiny being chattering its terror with warbles and bright tears of coolant.

"No!" the red femme cried, dropping her short dagger and backpedalling wildly in horror so that the Praxian wouldn't harm her charge, the gem on her Great Sword flashing a distressed magenta. "Please! Don't hurt him!"

"Where is Dai Atlas?" Silverstreak demanded harshly, withdrawing the sparkling back to dangle between them like a living shield. "I have a message for him. An urgent order of business one would say."

"Training Arena." The petite femme immediately answered half reaching out for the softly crying white and red sparkling wiggling in the Praxian's grip. "Just give me his Creation back."

"This?" Bluestreak asked with genuine surprise, lofting the sparkling up to optic level with a sneer, "This is Dai Atlas' Creation? I expected it to be bigger, oh well, makes my job easier I suppose."

"Give me Wing. I'll do whatever you say," bargained the sparkling sitter, stepping forward so that her servos were almost touching the clicking child. "Please, he's just a sparkling."

Bluestreak smiled, his azure optics flickering red, as he trained his gun on the sparkling-sitter with a devilish grin, "Alright then… Die."

"What are you…?" the femme asked as the gun recoiled in the assassin's grip, her blue optics widening as a sudden almost acidic burn exploded around her abdominal plating. The shot had been silent, and as she took her servo's away from where they had instantly flew to her stomach, she realised that the red of her plating was now smeared with the dark pink of her own processed energon. Her knees buckled, sending her against the opposite wall of the nursery, the acidic pellet of plasma having chewed straight through her, allowing energon to mark a grizzly trail of decent as the scarlet femme sunk to the floor.

Smirking, Bluestreak dumped the data-pad that Prowl had given him on the floor, magnetising the squealing, crying sparkling to his back strut between his doorwings and leaping from the window into the shadow of the opposite building as a black and gold mech stepped into the quarters just beyond the nursery…


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers!

Please R&R

(Hi everybody! Sorry for the long delay, my inspiration sort of fizzled and work has been hard lately. Regardless, I hope you all enjoy this next chapter of Wild Ones!)

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><p><em><strong>===Citadel of Light===<strong>_

Claret heaved a soft groan, the pink liquid lifeblood cascading from her stomach plating, mixing with the acid green of tank chemicals and the sniper's bullet to form a sickly orange sludge that began to clot and dry as she pushed herself up the wall, her Great Sword's gem scraping loudly against the grey metal painted with her energon as she tried for a last ditch effort to reclaim the now long gone sparkling.

"Claret?" a deep rumble had her letting out a wail as she jerked for the voice, tipping sloppily, pedes skidding in her own puddle of fluids causing the red femme to collapse to her knee joints with all her weight causing her knee shield plate to shatter with the groan of twisting metal.

"Axe!" she rasped in desperation, servos held out for her dear friend like he was an angel of Primus when he barged in the door at her tone, nearly sliding off his pedes in her entrails. "Wing!" she wept hysterically, coolant seeping from the corner's of her optics as if to clear them from the dark fog that began to creep up on her, confused as to why it was spreading across her vision like ink in water. "He took Wing!"

The black behemoth knelt next to her, his black hand covering hers to peek into her tank, the acid still nibbling and chipping away at the edges, "Claret, keep talking; what the kidnapper look like?" He soothed, his voice rough with panic as his Communication Link exploded with intermission static, Dai Atlas' low grumble answering with a low snap of, "What now Axe?"

"Get a Medic. Claret has been shot and Wing is missing." The huge black and gold mech barked, blue optics bright and dancing with panic clearly fighting down the automatic firing of his Parental Programming as the femme before him slumped, forcing him to catch and cradle her like he had done to Wing not twenty breems ago. "Damn it! Stay online Claret!"

"Your optics are so blue." She was mumbling as the vague sounds of Dai Atlas' enraged roars for results echoed around the Citadel of Light, her slim servo reaching up to gently touch Axe's silver faceplate, smearing pink energon down his cheek ridge like war paint when her joints gave out from lack of power, "They are so pretty, just like the mech's optics before they turned red, he was the walking dead," she croaked as if in fear, fingers splaying on the ground as if to imitate something, "Praxian." Claret spluttered, a cascade of energon flooding her mouth and sliding over her lips and glossa, her outline smudging with the grey of death, spark guttering like a small candle in a gale beneath her chest plates. "Data-pad, somewhere…"

Axe's optics flickered up and around the silent room, the quiet broken only by the whistling of the cyberwinds outside, battering at the tower, lunging for the anomaly in the dark only when the medics rushed into the room in a flurry of sirens and snapping voices demanding a Spark Shocker when Claret fell silent, her helm dipped in her puddle of lifeblood, coolant still dripping from her optics, valiantly still trying to clear Primus' fog of death, creating an oily iridescent rainbow in the spilt energon.

The screen was cracked, but it flickered valiantly on with a simple message written in an old language that only experienced Knights of the Circle would ever learn. "Axe." Dai Atlas' angry rumble had his helm spinning with a dizzy reel as their bond cracked open like a fragile egg shell, allowing_ anger/worry/promise vengeance in OUR sparkling's name_ to spill into his mind, as a white servo reached for the pad, making him keen as the key for his sparkling's retrieval was taken from him.

"Hush love." Dai Atlas murmured a servo massaging the black shoulder armour of his mate, ruby optics flashing like living magma, lit with his internal rage, as he read the message.

**Hello Master Dai Atlas, I'm ready for my next Lesson. **

**Barricade **

His engines rippling into a loud roar, Dai Atlas threw down the data-pad of his traitorous ex-student in an uncontrollable rage, smashing the hardware into shards of flying glass and circuitry.

_**===Praxus=== **_

_**===Enforcer Family Mansion=== **_

Smokescreen stood before his brother's pristine desk, doorwings drooped and helm lowered submissively, optical fluid tears trickling down his faceplate, the blue hued liquid catching in the seams of his silver faceplate and collecting in a dripping pool on his chin. The splashes of his tears on the metal alerting his working elder brother to look up, his ice optics narrowed in a calculating mist, noting his middle brother's distress.

"What ails you, dear one?" Prowl cooed darkly; a chilling sound spilling from his monotone voice, "Who does Big Brother have to punish?"

Smokescreen looked up with a jerk, a few drops of his tears splattering higher up the desk as he glared balefully, trying to pretend that he wasn't a young mech that needed to have his brother fight his battles. "I am not a sparkling that needs to be coddled." He growled as more tears flowed onto the Crime Lord of Praxus' desk, creating a crowned sphere of liquid tears on the polished metal.

Barricade abandoned his work with a dark smile, predatory fangs dropping over his polished lip plate with a gentle rasp of metal. "You are my little brother." The Crime Lord cooed, dark and smooth rising and stalking towards his sibling, doorwings flared wide and dazzling in the almost pitch black of the office, lit only by the natural light of Cybertron filtering through the red methane gas and blue crystals outside the large floor to ceiling windows. "I must take care of my precious little brothers; I wouldn't be a good big brother otherwise."

Prowl stopped before the sulky Smokescreen, leaning close, rising a clawed servo to lift his middle brother's chin so that they could lock optics, the younger jumping slightly as they stared into each other's identical eyes, only to shift sideways to watch as a single claw from Barricade's other servo lifted, glinting like a scythe shaped guillotine coming down the side of his captured faceplate, wiping the tears away with the soft wheezy rasping sigh of metal on metal.

Smokescreen's engine purred at the attention, "Do not cry, my dear little brother." Barricade rumbled, leaning close to press a fond kiss on the Gambler's forehelm at the centre of his golden chevron, "now tell me what troubles you."

"I lost." Smokescreen whispered as Prowl's brushing claw left his faceplate, his desperate need for his big brother's attention running his vocaliser, wanting more affectionate petting, nuzzling his tear streaked chin into the palm that cupped it. "I lost a game."

"Is that all?" Prowl purred, his neutral linear lips bending down in a twitch of distaste. "My, my, little brother, you are being very petulant, I would think you more mature."

"I never lose." Smokescreen said sounding dazed and desperate, his servos reaching for Barricade's now suddenly harsher grip to push out of the suddenly less tender grasp, "It is not in my programming to lose."

"Fate is a fickle creature dear one." The black and white mech snapped, releasing the younger mech with his engine rumbling a familiar deep growl of annoyance, doorwings flashing out in dismissal of the subject. "It may not be in your programming to lose, but fate always finds a way to disrupt perfect plans. Take my Bonding Orn for example, one slip and the whole castle crumbled, because you were careless."

Smokescreen whined, doorwings flipping down and close to his body, defensive and submissive at the bitterly sharp tone Prowl was scolding him with, if there was one thing Barricade hated to deal with, it was meaningless interruptions in his scheming, but this incident was important, important to Smokescreen and so it was to Prowl by default.

Barricade sighed; icy optics roaming his dejected little brother before beckoning the younger mech forward, enveloping the mostly blue mech in an embrace as the Gambler let out a sob of confused frustration. "Immature Sparkling," he gruffly huffed affectionately breaking his cold façade, long fingers stroking the golden chevron as the helm was tucked under his chin with a hitching purr. "I expect you to follow through with the debt you undoubtedly now owe. Uphold our family's honour, little brother, this is what I ask and demand as Lord of Praxus, handle this with the care and grace your were created for. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Big Brother. I understand."

_**===Sunstreaker=== **_

_**===Kaon Gladiator Pit===**_

He was beginning to suspect Sideswipe was being deliberately obtuse.

'_Hey this is Sideswipe, I'm currently out at the moment but please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as I can.'_ The auto voice chirped in his Twin's harmonics much to his increasing frustration. It had been the fifth time in as many joors that the blasted message had been playing. "Sideswipe it's Sunstreaker, pick up you aft." He said shortly; temper fraying as he slammed down the old fashioned receiver for the signal booster, quickly downloading the booster code so that he could receive calls instead.

Nightbird was slouching by the grubby call set against the wall, nursing her right arm that had been torn off in her last death match and had just been reattached not four joors ago. "Maybe he is out on business." She suggested as the golden mech took an irritated swing at a more cowardly gladiator that was creeping past. The sickly beige mech squealing in terror as the fist clattered the side of his helm, sending him tumbling onto his aft.

"Or ignoring me." The once famous artist snarled darkly, optics glowing in a wild flash of paranoia that he had been abandoned by his own spark twin. "Fragger Is still probably upset with me after I punched him the last time he came to visit."

"Words were never your strong point." The dark femme grinned, fractured denta still needing repaired after a flailing death throw had caught her mouth, flashing in a charming smile.

"You're not helping." Sunstreaker grumbled as he stormed through the Gladiator barracks deliberately crushing a wounded turbo rat under pede that a half crazed mech had been chasing down to nibble on, "Besides, it is either stay here and listen to this Megatron preach all joors of the orn about the 'Grand Destiny' of his gang or go mad like that sad piece of shareware." He retorted gesturing to the mech that was now sitting chewing on the flattened turbo rat's tail as a larger more violent mech passed them, ruby optics glinting savagely as he grabbed the mad mech and forced him to the messy corridor floor.

"Personally I might go knock on Megatron's door." Nightbird purred, winking an optic teasingly as Sunstreaker snorted his distaste at the pained screams now coming from behind them. "Leave you to your little quest to chase down that pleasurebot that fragged you senseless."

As he was about to snap out a sharp stinging retort about her more violent interfacing tendencies, his Communication Link buzzed violently in his audio like an agitated wasp, the caller I.D snapping up on his HUD as he waved off Nightbird with a dismissive wave of his servo. "It's Sideswipe." He said as she tilted her helm in interest, before she shrugged and went on her way.

"Say hi for me!" she called teasingly.

"Sunstreaker here." The golden Twin answered, servo cupped near his shiny gold slatted audio fin.

"What do you want this time?" Sideswipe's moody voice floated through the link, the line laced with static from the long distance despite the signal booster effects. "And just cut to the chase, Sunstreaker, it has _not_ been a good orn."

"I need a favour Sides, two actually." He said, sounding defeated even to his own audios. "I'm getting out of this Pit-hole and I need to get to Praxus."

"About damn time." The red twin snickered down the line, his mood lightening several octaves at the news, "So what can I do for you brother of mine?"

"I need credits for a shuttle to Praxus and directions to your shop first; I'm breaking out of here in half an orn." He schemed, calling in the first favour, "Second, I need you to find me a mech I've been looking for…"

"What are you dragging me into Sunny?" Sideswipe was quick to figure out, cutting off his brother warily the comm. line crackling with pregnant static pause.

"Nothing serious, Sides." Sunstreaker eventually reassured confidently, "Odds are none of your contacts have even heard of Bluestreak in the first place."


End file.
